Matching Items (2)
Description
This is a study of the plight of smallholder agriculture in Northwest Costa Rica. More specifically, this is the story of 689 rice farms, of an average size of 7.2 hectares and totaling just less than 5,300 hectares within the largest agricultural irrigation system in Central America. I was able to define the physical bounds of this study quite clearly, but one would be mistaken to think that this simplicity transfers to a search for rural development solutions in this case. Those solutions lie in the national and international politics that appear to have allowed a select few to pick winners and losers in Costa Rican agriculture in the face of global changes. In this research, I found that water scarcity among smallholder farms between 2006 and 2013 was the product of the adaptations of other, more powerful actors in 2002 to threats of Costa Rica's ratification of the Central American Free Trade Agreement. I demonstrate how the adaptations of these more powerful actors produced new risks for others, and how this ultimately prevented the rural development program from meeting its development goals. I reflect on my case study to draw conclusions about the different ways risks may emerge in rural development programs of this type. Then, I focus on the household level and show that determinants of successful adaptation to one type of global change risk may make farmers more vulnerable to other types, creating a "catch-22" among vulnerable farmers adapting to multiple global change risks. Finally, I define adaptation limits in smallholder rice farming in Northwest Costa Rica. I show that the abandonment of livelihood security and well-being, and of the unique "parcelaro" identities of rice farmers in this region define adaptation limits in this context.
ContributorsWarner, Benjamin (Author) / Childers, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Eakin, Hallie (Committee member) / Abbott, Joshua (Committee member) / Wiek, Arnim (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Investments in climate science come with an expectation of social benefit. Science policy--decision processes through which individuals and organizations support, manage, and evaluate research--plays an important role in determining those outcomes. Yet the details of how climate science policy actually works have received very little attention amid academic and policy-focused discussions of climate science. This dissertation examines climate science policy with particular attention to how it supports "public values" that justify research investments. It is widely recognized funding for climate science in the US has advanced knowledge considerably in recent decades but failed to produce useful information for decision makers. In Chapter 2, I use a methodological approach known as Public Value Mapping (PVM) to investigate this failure of the science policy system. My results show that science funding institutions have been ineffective at guiding climate science toward desired outcomes because of problematic, but common assumptions about the links between science and societal benefit. The remaining chapters look more closely at the implications of these tacit assumptions, which are held by individuals, and embedded in the organizations that implement climate science policy. Chapter 3 examines the notion that prediction is essential to climate science. Wide acceptance of the "prediction imperative" limits the scope of climate science policy. Chapter 4 examines the interplay of values and assumptions in two recently established organizations in Australia, each supporting research on climate change adaptation. In Chapter 5 I document a widespread assumption in the climate science literature that agreement among multiple models should bolster confidence in their results. This can only be correct if the models are independent of one another. Climate scientists have not demonstrated this to be true, nor have they offered a plausible framework for doing so. This dissertation adds an important dimension to our understanding of how climate science knowledge is produced, while offering constructive and practical recommendations to science policy decision makers working in government programs that fund climate science. Insight from these chapters suggests that an explicit and reflexive focus on values in science policy can be helpful to organizations pursuing science policy innovation.
ContributorsMeyer, Ryan McLaren (Author) / Sarewitz, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / David, Guston (Committee member) / Andrew, Hamilton (Committee member) / Clark, Miller (Committee member) / Roger, Pielke Jr (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010