Progress in climate change adaptation research. (30th April 2021)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Progress in climate change adaptation research. (30th April 2021)
- Main Title:
- Progress in climate change adaptation research
- Authors:
- Sietsma, Anne J
Ford, James D
Callaghan, Max W
Minx, Jan C - Abstract:
- Abstract: The scientific literature on climate change adaptation has become too large to assess manually. Beyond standard scientometrics, questions about if and how the field is progressing thus remain largely unanswered. Here we provide a novel, inquisitive, computer-assisted evidence mapping methodology that combines expert interviews ( n = 26) and structural topic modelling to evaluate open-ended research questions on progress in the field. We apply this to 62 191 adaptation-relevant scientific publications (1988–2020), selected through supervised machine learning from a comprehensive climate change query. Comparing the literature to key benchmarks of mature adaptation research, our findings align with trends in the adaptation literature observed by most experts: the field is maturing, growing rapidly, and diversifying, with social science and implementation topics arising next to the still-dominant natural sciences and impacts-focused research. Formally assessing the representativeness of IPCC citations, we find evidence of a delay effect for fast-growing areas of research like adaptation strategies and governance. Similarly, we show significant topic biases by geographic location: especially disaster and development-related topics are often studied in Southern countries by authors from the North, while Northern countries dominate governance topics. Moreover, there is a general paucity of research in some highly vulnerable countries. Experts lastly signal a need forAbstract: The scientific literature on climate change adaptation has become too large to assess manually. Beyond standard scientometrics, questions about if and how the field is progressing thus remain largely unanswered. Here we provide a novel, inquisitive, computer-assisted evidence mapping methodology that combines expert interviews ( n = 26) and structural topic modelling to evaluate open-ended research questions on progress in the field. We apply this to 62 191 adaptation-relevant scientific publications (1988–2020), selected through supervised machine learning from a comprehensive climate change query. Comparing the literature to key benchmarks of mature adaptation research, our findings align with trends in the adaptation literature observed by most experts: the field is maturing, growing rapidly, and diversifying, with social science and implementation topics arising next to the still-dominant natural sciences and impacts-focused research. Formally assessing the representativeness of IPCC citations, we find evidence of a delay effect for fast-growing areas of research like adaptation strategies and governance. Similarly, we show significant topic biases by geographic location: especially disaster and development-related topics are often studied in Southern countries by authors from the North, while Northern countries dominate governance topics. Moreover, there is a general paucity of research in some highly vulnerable countries. Experts lastly signal a need for meaningful stakeholder involvement. Expanding on the methods presented here would aid the comprehensive and transparent monitoring of adaptation research. For the evidence synthesis community, our methodology provides an example of how to move beyond the descriptive towards the inquisitive and formally evaluating research questions. … (more)
- Is Part Of:
- Environmental research letters. Volume 16:Number 5(2021)
- Journal:
- Environmental research letters
- Issue:
- Volume 16:Number 5(2021)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 16, Issue 5 (2021)
- Year:
- 2021
- Volume:
- 16
- Issue:
- 5
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2021-0016-0005-0000
- Page Start:
- Page End:
- Publication Date:
- 2021-04-30
- Subjects:
- adaptation -- climate change -- text mining -- natural language processing -- mixed methods -- evidence map -- evidence synthesis
Environmental sciences -- Periodicals
Human ecology -- Research -- Periodicals
Environmental health -- Periodicals
333.7 - Journal URLs:
- http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326 ↗
http://www.iop.org/EJ/toc/1748-9326 ↗
http://ioppublishing.org/ ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1088/1748-9326/abf7f3 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 1748-9326
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 3791.592955
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 16776.xml