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Research: Climate adaptationIndigenous communities in remote areas of Australia often have inadequate infrastructure, health services and employment. Consequently, many of these communities show features of social and economic disadvantage. Existing social disadvantage reduces coping ability and may restrict adaptive capacity, affecting these communities' resilience to climate hazards. Many of these communities strongly connect the health of their 'country' to their cultural, mental and physical well-being. Direct biophysical impacts, such as increases in temperature, rainfall extremes or sea-level rise, are likely to have significant indirect impacts on the social and cultural cohesion of these communities. There is recent recognition of the untapped resource of Indigenous knowledge about past climate change which could be used to inform adaptation options. However, the oral tradition of recording this knowledge has, until recently, largely hindered non-Indigenous scientists from using this expertise to inform their science. Climate-change impacts identified for remote Indigenous communities include increases in the number of days of extreme heat, which may affect disease vectors, reproduction and survival of infectious pathogens, and heat stress; extreme rainfall events and flooding, causing infrastructure damage; salt inundation of freshwater aquifers and changes in mangrove ecology; changing fire regimes; sea-level rise and coastal erosion. CCRC academic staff currently active in this area of research |
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