From mangrove to milpa: what determines resilience to extreme weather events in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico?

Available meteorological records show that the world's weather is becoming more variable and more extreme and that these extremes are becoming more costly in terms of both insured and uninsured losses to infrastructure, crops, housing and natural ecosystems. The relative impact of, and vulnerability to, these events is highest in developing economies. In Mexico the economic cost of extreme events increased 30x between 1980-99 and 2000-2012 and climate change projections indicate that the country will experience more extreme weather, as well as more intense droughts. Within Mexico, the Yucatan peninsula has been identified as being unusually vulnerable to climate change in part because of its low rainfall, high temperatures and frequent tropical storms (including the most intense hurricanes), but also because of the continuing importance of small scale, near subsistence farming and fishing and a high indigenous (Maya) population who are economically disadvantaged. Better understanding of what makes communities, and particular sectors of communities, more or less resilient in the face of extreme weather events will help in the development of effective adaptation strategies at local, regional and national scales in a context of a changing climate. Achieving this means drawing together researchers from a range of disciplinary backgrounds (spanning the natural and social sciences and humanities) to develop a common research methodology. For this research to be relevant and practical in terms of real world problems, it also needs to be developed with input from the potential users and/or beneficiaries of the work. This project brings together a team of experts from UK and Mexican research institutions, all of whom have experience of working in the Yucatan on different aspects of weather and climate (especially drought) but largely with a particular focus (e.g. the role of gender in understanding and coping with extreme weather, ecosystem sensitivity to drought). Here, they will work together and with our existing networks of federal and state government agencies (such as the Secretariat for the Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT), the Gender and Environment Network (RGMA), the Secretariat for Urban Development and Environment Yucatan (SEDUMA) and the National Protected Areas Commission (CONANP)) and community groups (e.g U'yool'che a sustainable agriculture collective). This work will be focused on three specific study regions, one on the north coast of the peninsula where hurricanes are a particular problem and two further south, where drought is more of a concern, one where subsistence farming dominates and one where commercial agriculture is more important. These geographically specific studies will be complemented by work to exploit the availability of new, high resolution satellite imagery from the ESA's Sentinel-2 and -3 platforms to track landuse and vegetation change and work on the data available from the region's network of meteorological stations. Taken together these approaches will allow a fuller assessment of which parts of the peninsula are most vulnerable to extreme events and the impacts these have on the natural and managed environment, of what makes communities more or less vulnerable and their strategies for adaptation. The specific goal will be to develop a protocol for determining resilience which will support policy makers and communities in making decisions about how to cope more effectively with the negative impacts of a changing climate on economic development and quality of life through better understanding and improved communication.

Who might benefit?
The key aim of this proposal is to build capacity to address the additional challenges to development posed by the environmental hazards of droughts and major tropical storms (especially hurricanes), in the context of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. This will be achieved by a) building research capacity and methodologies and b) effective knowledge exchange and translation between academic researchers and public bodies (here primarily agencies of federal and state governments), community groups and other interested third sector parties. The research team already has an extensive network of non-academic partners and collaborators (see Pathways to Impact and letters of support from Project Partners) and these will be the main beneficiaries of this research. In the context of Mexico, it has been recognised that whilst the country has a clearly articulated strategy for climate change mitigation, its adaptation strategies are rather weakly developed, with few in-depth studies of what determines integrated socio-ecological systemic resilience. National and state climate change strategy documents highlight the need to reduce vulnerability and increase resilience, both for the human population and natural ecosystems, but it is less clear how this might be achieved and policies and practice need more examples and better understanding of what determines resilience. At community level, concerns over climatic variability and climatic change are interwoven with a changing economic and social landscape resulting from economic liberalisation, the impact of federal government financial support schemes, migration and internal factors around power and communication, often determined by cultural norms and practices. An appreciation of the local and particular is important if state policies (driven in turn by federal policies) are to be successful in reducing the vulnerability to, and impacts of, climate-related natural hazards. In turn, improving local understanding of the wider 'landscape' of climate risks will be valuable.

How might they benefit?
a) research capacity - this will be built through participation in a collaborative, multi-disciplinary research network. There will be a focus on developing early career researchers; three will be employed on the project, two in Mexico and one in the UK (the named researcher is Mexican national who has been carrying out her PhD in the UK). They will play an important role in defining the project and developing the research protocol which is central to this proposal. Working with government agencies and community groups will benefit all the researchers involved to develop and improve skills of communication and knowledge translation. b) effective knowledge exchange with users/beneficiaries. The co-production of a research methodology to explore climate-impacts resilience will enable more effective strategies to be developed at community, municipal and state level to reduce the negative impacts of extreme weather, which in turn impact on poverty alleviation and development goals, in both the short and longer term. Examples of effective adaptation practices, linked to strategies for more effective communication of risks and improved preparedness will be drawn from the research and shared and discussed with our partner organisations.