Adaptive transition for transformations to sustainability in developing countries

Adaptation and transition are two prominent sustainability science concepts. The former includes one facet of resilience, the capacity of socio-ecological systems to continually change and adapt within their critical thresholds with some exceptional transformability beyond thresholds. The latter concept entails niche experimentation of low-carbon systems and how niche-internal actors influence transformational changes, so-called sustainability transitions, and are influenced by incumbent socio-technical regime. Critics argue that neither adaptation literature nor transition literature sufficiently informs adaptive transition pathways that need to be responsive to already low-carbon subsistence production systems in many developing countries. Recognizing this gap, this paper, albeit in a modest way, develops a framework of adaptive transition integrating socio-ecological systems approaches to adaptation to change referred to as adaptive management, and socio-technical systems approaches to management of change referred to as transition management.