"Ours is a history of adapting": An analysis of adaptive capacity to climate change in rural and small-town Saskatchewan

Abstract

Climate scientists project that the Canadian Prairies will undergo increasing effects of climate change in the future, and indeed have already observed significant impacts. Scientists have projected rising temperatures, changing growing seasons, an increase in variability, and more extreme and frequent disasters such as fires, floods, and droughts throughout the next several decades. While not all communities in the Canadian Prairies are equally exposed to the impacts of climate change, social scientists have noted that vulnerability of communities to climate change is not determined by exposure alone. Vulnerability is conceptualized as a function of a community’s exposure to a climate hazard, in combination with the social elements that shape the severity of the hazard. The impacts of these disasters are compounded by socioeconomic circumstances. In the rural and small-town Prairies, farming and resource extraction and development (e.g., oil, gas, and mining) are key economies. Given this dependence on natural resources, disruption of the natural environment can create economic precarities. Rising temperatures, increasing unpredictability in the growing season, and more frequent weather disasters require adjustments in farming practices, and these challenges are compounded by pre-existing socioeconomic circumstances that Canadian Prairie farmers have been facing for decades, such as expanding global markets resulting in financial precarities and reducing the number of food producers. These socioeconomic shifts, compounded with climate change impacts, have created conditions of vulnerability for many communities in the Prairies. Given these realities, communities must adapt to address the impacts of climate change and global economic patterns. With the projected rise in climate variability, unpredictability, and weather disasters, attention to adaptive capacity will be required if Prairie communities are to continue to support peoples’ livelihoods and well-being. This research investigates the social dimensions that shape adaptive capacity in rural and small-town Saskatchewan, specifically examining the impacts of socioeconomic conditions, the operation of resources such as social and human capital, and the ways these resources can work together to foster adaptive capacity to climate change. This study draws from interviews and participant observation in a central region of Saskatchewan to investigate the realities of adaptive capacity in areas with various levels of exposure to climate hazards. Forty-four interviews were conducted with participants in the town of Hafford, the surrounding Rural Municipality (RM) of Redberry (No. 435), the town of Radisson, village of Borden, and surrounding RM of Great Bend (No. 405). This thesis follows a manuscript-based format, with the three central chapters (Chapters 2, 3, and 4) each constituting a standalone article manuscript. Chapter 2 discusses the role of neoliberalization in shaping the realities of consolidated farming in rural and smalltown communities, and the influence of these economic and political patterns on population, social infrastructure, and ultimately adaptive capacity. Chapter 3 investigates the role of bonding and bridging social capital in shaping adaptive capacity, finding that bonding social capital might inhibit bridging social capital and consequently the ability to adapt. Finally, Chapter 4 analyzes how local governments can use social capital to mobilize the human capital often present in Prairie communities towards effective flood management, drawing from experiences of a flood that took place in 2013. These three chapters constitute the basis of this thesis, and all contribute to significant findings on how adaptive capacity operates in rural and small-town communities in Saskatchewan.