Individual and household-scale adaptation to climate change in the Texas Borderlands

Abstract

International border regions have distinct challenges and opportunities when confronting climate change. Relatedly, there is a wealth of knowledge examining adaptative measures that address the negative effects of climate change in international borders regions. However, studies typically focus on bi-national policy agreements and less on how residents of border communities perceive, experience, and adapt to these changes. This study begins to address this gap by presenting survey results conducted in a US-Mexico border community, the town of La Joya, in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. We analyzed survey responses using descriptive and bivariate statistics in STATA to investigate how La Joya residents (n=90) both experience and respond to climate change and the ways adaptation practices overlap with age, livelihood status, birthplace, and if the respondent migrates internationally or domestically for work. Results show how access to resources like economic opportunities and bi-national, bi-cultural knowledges may increase adaptive capacity while border-specific factors like politicization, the border wall, and militarization can create additional obstacles to adaptation. Results begin to fill a critical gap in scholarship on the social dimensions of climate change by documenting and analyzing how an often-vulnerable population, yet rarely documented population, perceives climate change and shedding light on border-specific social, economic, and political dimensions to climate change adaptation. Findings could inform policy-makers on how to support border communities as they respond to climate change and indicate a need for additional case study research that investigates how individuals, households, and communities adapt to climate change in border regions.