Climate adaptation in the Colorado Plateau region: Insights from natural resource practitioners on adaptation planning and current challenges

Climate adaptation has been interpreted and applied in various ways within natural resource management. Previous research has not fully addressed how these different interpretations by individuals and agencies affect adaptation planning and efforts. Our study aims to address these challenges by investigating barriers to defining and interpreting adaptation comprehensively, utilizing the conceptual foundation of transformative adaptation. We used a mixed-methods research approach involving semi-structured interviews and a survey. The research participants were natural resource practitioners working on the public lands on the Colorado Plateau in the Southwestern U.S. Results showed that current land management strategies utilized by federal and state agencies pose challenges for adopting effective climate adaptation actions, and the concept of adaptation is applied and utilized in diverse ways that are not always beneficial to ecological adaptation. Our analysis indicates that current federal policies and pre-existing management priorities are central barriers to proactive adaptation in the region, where novel approaches were limited in favor of business-as-usual practices. Our study builds on existing literature that shows a present gap in natural resource planning and action on the ground due to barriers to defining adaptation, as well as how adaptation is often used to conduct business-as-usual strategies instead of taking proactive actions.