How the Resist-Accept-Direct framework is being used by communities for socio-economic climate adaptation: a case study in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin

Abstract Globally, water governance struggles to reconcile increased demands on water resources with climate change–induced reductions in supply, making climate adaptation in water governance a pressing concern. The Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework has emerged as a climate adaptation tool designed to help make adaptation decisions. However, there is limited understanding of social and political factors, which are critical in driving RAD decisions. This paper explores how communities are employing RAD to make climate adaptation decisions, using a case study of the Goulburn-Murray Resilience Strategy (the Strategy); a community-led strategy that uses a version of the RAD framework to build regional resilience in the Goulburn-Murray Irrigation District (GMID) in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin (MDB). The Strategy focuses on building socio-economic, rather than ecological, resilience, making this research a valuable contribution to RAD literature. To apply the RAD framework to socio-economic adaptation, we adapted the framework to include IPCC language around incremental, transformational, planned, and autonomous adaptation. With the GMID considered a leader of resilience thinking in Australia, the Strategy may help decision-makers address water overallocation and contested governance in the MDB, and provide lessons for water governance globally. Data analysed from 20 semi-structured interviews with people involved with the Strategy revealed two main findings: (1) Communities and governments prioritise different actions under the RAD framework. Governments, particularly at the state level, preference incremental planned adaptation to maintain the status quo (resist), over incremental autonomous adaptation to changing conditions (accept), and transformational planned adaptation at various scales (direct). (2) Community and government actors perceive that factors driving governments’ preference for incremental-resist adaptation include electoral short-termism, linear planning, and conservative government culture.