How Do Adaptation Practices Become Climate Maladaptive? A Scoping Review of Empirical Scholarship

Widespread evidence of “climate maladaptation”—adaptations that inversely increase climate‐related risks—now exists. The significant interest in climate maladaptation, along with its current critical mass of empirical observations, makes systematic assessments opportune for evaluating the state of the field. This article conducts a scoping review within the human dimensions of environmental change literature to examine how researchers understand the drivers associated with climate maladaptation and the decision‐support measures they propose. Eighty‐nine (89) peer‐reviewed articles spanning 21 adaptation “sectors” and 64 countries or areas are systematically analyzed. Imbalances in geographical focus, authorship affiliation, and sector context are evident; however, as a sample, multi‐level and multi‐causal explanations and redressal measures are identified. Key areas of progress include complementary frameworks for conceptualizing maladaptation, the identification of multiple, often simultaneous, drivers, and attention to incremental and transformative redressal measures. We outline future research avenues that place the reviewed scholarship into conversation with novel and emerging contributions to the field. This article is categorized under: Perceptions, Behavior, and Communication of Climate Change > Behavior Change and Responses Perceptions, Behavior, and Communication of Climate Change > Social Amplification/Attenuation of Climate Risks Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Learning from Cases and Analogies