User:Riggslm/sandbox

Mesoamerican strategies
The Classic Maya civilization can serve as an example as to how climate change can catalyze human adaptation. The factors that determine a populations' vulnerability and ultimate resilience are identified by Dunning et al. as the system's rigidity, their options for change, and their resilient capacity. In Classic Maya, geography played a role in the civilizations ability to adapt, although it was not enough of a factor to prevent the ultimate collapse of the empire. The coastal plains communities had many more options for change and resilient capacity than those Maya in the elevated interior areas, as they had more dependable access to drinking water in addition to river and maritime trade networks. Traditionally, classical Mayan agriculture was highly adapted to the seasonal weather shifts of drought and precipitation. As the population began to expand, the water reservoirs had to serve more and more people. The sanitation of these reservoirs was achieved by transforming the man-made reservoirs into "wetland biospheres", which involved the planting of pondweeds to purify the water, and water lilies to prevent the build-up of too much algae. Additionally, they implemented terracing on upland slopes in response to the extensive deforestation in Classical Maya lowlands. However, the system began to falter at the end of the Classic period as the Mayan lowlands suffered from a series of droughts. The Mayan kings, who held the royal power, were the ones who had political control over the water resources. They were very dependent on laborers to maintain and clean the reservoirs and wells. As water resources became increasingly scarce and drought plagued the Mayan people, the population gradually began to decrease. This was further exacerbated by a lieu of socioeconomic changes, which included shifting trade routes, intercity conflict, and the presence of adjacent land to relieve population pressures. As the farmers and laborers adapted or migrated, the elite did nothing to change their actions and their political structure began to collapse.

In Mesoamerica today, climate change is one of the main threats to rural central american farmers, as the region is plagued with frequent droughts, cyclones and the El Niño- Southern-Oscillation. Although there is a wide variety of adaption strategies, these can vary dramatically from country to country. Many of the adjustments that have been made are primarily agricultural or related to water supply. Some of these adaptive strategies include restoration of degraded lands, rearrangement of land uses across territories, livelihood diversification, changes to sowing dates or water harvest, and even migration. The lack of available resources in Mesoamerica continues to pose as a barrier to more substantial adaptations, so the changes made today are much more incremental.