Prof. Magesh Nagarajan’s co-authored paper on ‘Empowering citizen-led adaptation to systemic climate change risks’ has been published in the Nature Climate Change journal.
The research project was led by Professor Tom H. Oliver, from School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, UK. This collaborative research involved researchers from University of Reading (UK), University of Surrey (UK), and CSIR-Water Research Institute (Ghana).
The study ponders the increasing impacts of climate change, instigating the need for adaptation. The authors appraise a pilot process using participatory systems mapping with citizens to identify diverse threat vectors for local climate impacts and context-relevant interventions to protect households and communities while considering synergies and trade-offs with other socially desirable outcomes. The researchers tested the pilot process in communities in the Lower Volta Basin in Ghana, the Assam region in India, and Southern England. From participants’ perspectives, the process increased awareness of and preparedness for climate change impacts and raised essential learning points for upscaling citizen-led adaptation approaches. The process helped understand multiple outcomes of interventions, barriers, and enablers to implementation and co-design sensitivity to regional geography and socio-cultural context.