Determining Enabling Environments for Climate Adaptation in Natural Resource Management

Determining Enabling Environments for Climate Adaptation in Natural Resource Management | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Determining Enabling Environments for Climate Adaptation in Natural Resource Management Eliisa Carter, Courtney Schultz This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8266048/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 4 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Natural resource professionals are on the front lines of climate change and uniquely situated to understand the lands where they work. Analyzing the impacts of learning tools designed to build adaptive capacity within the natural resource management field can offer insights into an enabling environment for climate change adaptation. Through interviews with 35 professionals across multiple landownerships and disciplines (e.g., forestry, habitat restoration, wildlife specialists), we identified the challenges and enablers they faced when applying lessons from the Climate Change Response Framework's Adaptation Planning and Practices courses to their local context. Participants identified many challenges, including, but not limited to, financial (e.g., cost of materials and labor), operational (e.g., temporal mismatches between adaptation plans and ecological realities), and governance conditions (e.g., inconsistent prioritization of climate change). Enablers included the importance of communication through strengthened social networks for enhancing public receptivity to adaptation activities, and the role of multi-scale congruence in better vertical policy alignment and horizontal coordination. We contextualize our findings with institutional innovation from environmental governance literature and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's conceptualizations of enabling conditions. We offer an updated framework for viewing adaptation from a more localized yet translatable natural resource management perspective. We promote the continued testing, development, and discussion of sector-specific and practitioner-derived enabling environments for adaptation. climate change adaptation natural resource management enabling environment adaptation learning institutional innovation Figures Figure 1 Full Text Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Reviewers agreed at journal 12 Jan, 2026 Reviewers invited by journal 07 Jan, 2026 Editor assigned by journal 05 Dec, 2025 First submitted to journal 04 Dec, 2025 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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