Maladaptation: Understanding Unintended Risks in Climate Adaptation

Exploring how well-intentioned climate adaptation can backfire, deepen inequities, and intensify vulnerability.

By Sneha Tete, Integrated MA, Certified Relationship Coach

Created on Sep 27, 2025

Exploring how well-intentioned climate adaptation can backfire, deepen inequities, and intensify vulnerability.

Maladaptation: When Adaptation Efforts Backfire

In the race to respond to climate change, adaptation strategies are widely recognized as essential tools for limiting harm and building resilience. Yet, not all adaptation is effective—some measures can actually worsen vulnerability or create new risks. This troubling phenomenon is known as maladaptation. As climate solutions are rolled out worldwide, understanding maladaptation—its causes, forms, and impacts—has become critically important for ensuring that today’s solutions do not become tomorrow’s problems.

What Is Maladaptation?

Maladaptation refers to actions taken to adapt to climate change that—intentionally or not—increase vulnerability to climate risks or have negative consequences for people, ecosystems, or future generations. Originally outlined in academic literature in the late 1990s, maladaptation has become a central concern for researchers and policymakers, especially as called out in several Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports.

Key definitions include:

IPCC (2014, AR5): “Actions that may lead to increased risk of adverse climate-related outcomes, increased vulnerability to climate change, or diminished welfare, now or in the future.”
Barnett & O’Neill (2013): “Action taken ostensibly to avoid or reduce vulnerability to climate change that impacts adversely on, or increases the vulnerability of other systems, sectors, or social groups.”
Magnan (2014): “A process that results in increased vulnerability to climate variability and change, directly or indirectly, and/or significantly undermines capacities or opportunities for present and future adaptation.”

The thread connecting all definitions: Maladaptation arises when adaptation solutions fail to achieve their intended goals, generate negative side effects, or shift vulnerabilities elsewhere in society or over time.

Origins and Jargon: Why We Talk About Maladaptation

The term maladaptation emerged in climate literature as early as 1998 and gained prominence through successive IPCC assessments. It underscores that not every adaptation is good adaptation—sometimes efforts to “fix” a problem simply move or deepen risks. The increased attention stems from:

Recognition of unintended consequences. Even well-meaning policies can have negative side effects.
The need to evaluate adaptation success and failure. Not all unsuccessful adaptation equals maladaptation, but some unintended harms can and should be classified as such.
Emphasis on justice and equity. Maladaptation often disproportionately affects the most vulnerable populations.

Types and Forms of Maladaptation

The literature identifies several types of maladaptation arising from both policies and projects:

Infrastructural Maladaptation: Physical interventions (e.g., dams, seawalls) that inadvertently create new or shifted risks for people or ecosystems.
Institutional Maladaptation: Policies or governance arrangements that increase vulnerability, such as inflexible rules or poorly targeted subsidies.
Operational Maladaptation: Day-to-day management or strategies that work in the short term but erode resilience over time.
Social Maladaptation: Measures that reinforce social or economic inequities, leaving some groups more exposed to risks.

Maladaptation can occur in several ways:

By increasing greenhouse gas emissions, undermining mitigation goals.
By disproportionately burdening vulnerable populations, amplifying social or economic inequalities.
By creating high opportunity costs, using resources inefficiently or blocking more effective responses.
By reducing incentives for long-term adaptation, promoting complacency.
By causing path dependency, locking societies into unsustainable or risky trajectories.

Spatial and Temporal Spillovers

Maladaptation often exhibits spatial and temporal dimensions:

Spatial spillovers: Risks may shift from the targeted area or group to others—vulnerability is simply redistributed.
Temporal spillovers: Today’s solutions may become tomorrow’s problems, especially if solutions depend on unsustainable systems.

Why Does Maladaptation Happen?

Despite good intentions, maladaptation arises from several root causes:

Lack of inclusive planning: Top-down, “blueprint” approaches neglecting local contexts, Indigenous knowledge, or vulnerable voices are prone to failure.
Narrow or short-term focus: Addressing immediate risks without accounting for future dynamics or cross-sector impacts.
Failure to consider equity and justice: Policies not taking into account who bears the costs or benefits of adaptation.
Poor governance and limited climate leadership: Inadequate oversight, evaluation, or learning from past efforts leads to repeated mistakes.
Political or economic pressures: Quick fixes that win political points or protect investments may be maladaptive if not robust in the face of future changes.

Real-World Examples of Maladaptation

Concrete examples illustrate how adaptation can backfire:

Coastal Engineering: Seawalls protect beachfront properties but can accelerate erosion elsewhere, harming coastal ecosystems and communities downstream.
Flood Control Infrastructure: Building large dams shields certain populations but may cause poorer communities to be more exposed or disrupt livelihoods for those reliant on riverine ecosystems.
Water Management Policy: Subsidies for irrigation support farmers in drought, but without careful regulation, they may deplete aquifers, undermining future water security for all.
Resettlement Programs: Moving communities away from hazard-prone areas often brings them new social and economic vulnerabilities if livelihoods, support networks, or cultural ties are severed.
Air Conditioning Uptake: Urban heatwave adaptation leads to increased air conditioner use, yet reliance on fossil-fuel powered electricity can drive up emissions and fuel even more warming.

Who Is Most at Risk?

Maladaptation disproportionately affects marginalized and vulnerable groups. According to the IPCC (2022), adaptation planning that overlooks the needs of specific groups leads to increased risk, marginalization, and deepening inequity.

Poor communities may be forcibly relocated, suffering social and economic losses.
Indigenous Peoples and local communities regularly face exclusion from adaptation planning, though their knowledge is critical for resilience.
Women, elderly people, and those with disabilities often have less power to shape or benefit from adaptation measures, yet may suffer most from failed efforts.

IPCC Insights: Maladaptation Is Rising

The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report stresses that evidence of maladaptation is growing around the world. This underlines the need for systematic scrutiny of all adaptation actions:

Rigorous monitoring and evaluation of adaptation policies to capture unintended outcomes.
Incorporation of equity and justice into planning and policy at all stages.
Learning from both success and failure to update practices.

How Can Maladaptation Be Prevented?

There are clear strategies for avoiding the pitfalls of maladaptation and ensuring adaptation is transformative, inclusive, and effective:

Emphasize Inclusive and Participatory Planning: Engage all affected groups—especially marginalized communities, Indigenous Peoples, and vulnerable populations—in co-designing solutions that reflect local knowledge and needs.
Promote Flexibility and Learning: Adaptation must be an ongoing, iterative process. Regularly assess day-to-day realities and adapt as circumstances change, drawing lessons from experience.
Integrate Equity, Justice, and Sustainability: Evaluate who benefits and who bears the costs. Prioritize fair share of benefits and ensure adaptation policies do not deepen social divides.
Think Long-term and Systemically: Consider implications across sectors, space, and time. Plans should be robust for future conditions and avoid “lock-in” to unsustainable practices.
Combine Scientific, Local, and Indigenous Knowledge: Diverse forms of expertise and lived experience are critical for developing adaptation that works, is legitimate, and minimizes risks.
Avoid “Blueprint” Solutions: Context matters—policies blindly adopted from elsewhere often fail to address local vulnerabilities, climate, and social dynamics.

Indicators of Adaptation Success vs. Maladaptation

Adaptation Success	Maladaptation
Reduces vulnerability for all groups	Increases or shifts vulnerability
Promotes social equity and justice	Marginalizes certain groups
Strengthens adaptive capacity over time	Erodes resilience or creates dependence
Considers cross-sector and long-run impacts	Narrowly focused, ignores spillovers
Dynamically adjusted and learned from	Rigid and unresponsive to change

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Maladaptation

Q: Is maladaptation always intentional?

A: No, maladaptation usually arises as an unintended consequence of adaptation actions. Often, the negative effects are discovered only after policies have been implemented.

Q: How is maladaptation different from failed adaptation?

A: Failed adaptation is simply ineffective or insufficient adaptation. Maladaptation goes beyond failure: it actively increases risk or vulnerability, or shifts those risks elsewhere.

Q: Are there specific sectors where maladaptation is most common?

A: Maladaptation has been documented in water management, disaster response, agriculture, urban planning, and infrastructure. It can occur anywhere adaptation is poorly planned or lacks inclusiveness.

Q: How can we measure maladaptation?

A: Good *monitoring and evaluation* are essential. This involves assessing not only intended results but also unintended outcomes, with a focus on equity impacts and cross-sector side effects.

Q: What role does local knowledge play in preventing maladaptation?

A: Local and Indigenous knowledge provide valuable insights into context-specific risks and needs. Including diverse voices helps identify unintended consequences early and ensures adaptation is relevant and just.

Key Takeaways

Maladaptation occurs when adaptation efforts, instead of reducing climate risks, accidentally increase vulnerability or shift burdens.
It can be caused by top-down planning, short-term thinking, lack of inclusiveness, or neglect of equity considerations.
To avoid maladaptation, climate solutions must be locally informed, equitable, and evaluated regularly for both intended and unintended impacts.
The costs of maladaptation often fall hardest on the most vulnerable groups—making climate justice foundational for effective adaptation.

References

Author

Sneha TeteBeauty & Lifestyle Writer

Sneha is a relationships and lifestyle writer with a strong foundation in applied linguistics and certified training in relationship coaching. She brings over five years of writing experience to thebridalbox, crafting thoughtful, research-driven content that empowers readers to build healthier relationships, boost emotional well-being, and embrace holistic living.

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