Reinhard Mechler
Research Group Leader and Senior Research Scholar
Systemic Risk and Resilience Research Group
Advancing Systems Analysis
Biography
Reinhard Mechler has over 20 years of experience analyzing and addressing socio-economic aspects of disaster and climate change risks. His interest is to provide evidence-based advice to a wide range of public and private sector decision-makers to improve decisions and build resilience against salient risks. Currently, he is the leader of the Systemic Risk and Resilience (SYRR) Research Group in the IIASA Advancing Systems Analysis (ASA) Program. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Graz and is a senior lecturer at the University for Economics and Business in Vienna.Dr. Mechler has led and contributed to many international research and consultancy projects and is currently leading research for the Flood Resilience Alliance, which brings together researchers, international NGOs, and the private sector to build disaster and climate resilience across the globe. He acted as a lead author on the IPCC's special report on managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation (SREX), the 5th assessment report and the report on 1.5°C global warming, and is currently a lead author on the IPCC's 6th assessment report.
Areas of Expertise: Socio-Economics of natural disaster risk management and climate adaptation, climate risk and resilience, disaster risk management and climate change policy, loss and damage, climate finance.
Last update: 24 MAR 2021
Publications
McQuistan, C., Mechler, R. , & Rosen Jacobson, B. (2022). Closing the gaps. A framework for understanding policies and actions to address losses and damages. Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance
Borghi, J., Ismail, S., Hollway, J., Kim, R.E., Sturmberg, J., Brown, G., Mechler, R. , Volmink, H., Spicer, N., Chalabi, Z., Cassidy, R., Johnson, J., Foss, A., Koduah, A., Searle, C., Komendantova, N. , Semwanga, A., & Moon, S. (2022). Viewing the global health system as a complex adaptive system – implications for research and practice. F1000Research 11 e1147. 10.12688/f1000research.126201.1.
Juhola, S., Filatova, T., Hochrainer-Stigler, S., Mechler, R. , Scheffran, J., & Schweizer, P.-J. (2022). Exploring Social Tipping Points and Adaptation Limits in the Context of Systemic Risk. Frontiers in Climate 4 e1009234. 10.3389/fclim.2022.1009234.
Huggel, C., Bouwer, L.M., Juhola, S., Mechler, R. , Muccione, V., Orlove, B., & Wallimann-Helmer, I. (2022). The existential risk space of climate change. Climatic Change 174 (1-2) e8. 10.1007/s10584-022-03430-y.
Laurien, F. , McCallum, I. , Velev, S., & Mechler, R. (2022). Resilience service technologies for identifying climate change adaptation gaps: The flood resilience dashboard. In: EGU General Assembly 2022, 23-27 May 2022, Vienna.