The Block Error Rate (BLER) is a measure of how successful a data transmission is over the air

at the Physical/MAC layer level. If a transport block is successful decoded (the CRC calculated
by the receiver matches the CRC sent in the block, then the transmission is successful. The target
BLER for the radio link is typically set to 10% (meaning that the transmission must be sent in
such a way as to achieve a 90% success rate on average).
If the transmission fails, then the receiver indicates this with a HARQ NAK (negative
acknowledgement); the sender can then send additional information (e.g. error correction bits) to
help the receiver decode the original transmission (a so-called HARQ retransmission). The
receiver combines the new bits with the original bits, and tries to decode the block again; if
successful, the transmission is complete, if not, another HARQ retransmission can provide more
help. Generally speaking, HARQ will try 3 times to get the block through (original + 2
retransmissions), after which the transmission is considered to have failed.
36.321 Sections 5.2 and 5.3 provide the details on HARQ.
At the Physical Layer for LTE, the target error rate is 10%; in UMTS, the target could be
configured, and was often set to 1% or 2%. You can read more about HARQ in 36.321, sections
5.3 and 5.4.
Uplink adaptation is really up to the eNB vendor. Using the available feeback from uplink
transmissions (such as DMRS, SRS and HARQ stats), the eNB can adjust its uplink allocations
(and the UE's power level) in order to achieve the target error rate.