NOAA’s Adaptation Sciences (AdSci) research program is designed to advance the knowledge, methods and frameworks needed to move society beyond incremental adaptation toward more widespread, connected, adaptive pathways, and resilience strategies with clear economic and societal co-benefits. Research focuses on the integration of acute and chronic stressors that occur over multiple timescales, which can lead to cascading impacts that threaten to overwhelm and undermine systems important to daily life and social and economic well-being.
The goal of the AdSci Program is to foster adaptation and resilience by supporting research and partnerships focused on:
- Developing an understanding of key drivers and conditions that shape and enable adaptation across multiple temporal and spatial scales (e.g., socioeconomic context, adaptive behaviors, risk perception, public awareness and education); and
- Identifying key aspects of and promoting opportunities for the use of scientific information to best support preparedness and planned adaptation of high value to social and economic goals.
The AdSci program is composed of several program elements - each shaped by ongoing engagement and structured partnerships with key stakeholders - and program strategies that reflect the societal needs and opportunities for collaboration that emerge from these partnerships. AdSci’s current program elements include partnerships and projects focused on the following: international collaboration to advance adaptation and resilience; climate impacts on fisheries and pathways for adaptation in fishing communities; and water-resources challenges and opportunities in coastal communities.