Reinhard Mechler

Research Group Leader and Senior Research Scholar

Systemic Risk and Resilience Research Group

Advancing Systems Analysis Program

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

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.

Ringsmuth, A.K., Otto, I.M., van den Hurk, B., Lahn, G., Reyer, C.P.O., Carter, T.R., Magnuszewski, P., Monasterolo, I., Aerts, J.C.J.H., Benzie, M., Campiglio, E., Fronzek, S., Gaupp, F., Jarzabek, L., Klein, R.J.T., Knaepen, H., Mechler, R. , Mysiak, J., Sillmann, J., Stuparu, D., & West, C. (2022). Lessons from COVID-19 for managing transboundary climate risks and building resilience. Climate Risk Management 35 e100395. 10.1016/j.crm.2022.100395.

Deubelli, T. , Norton, R., Mechler, R. , Venkateswaran, k., McClune, K., & Stevance, A.-S. (2022). Boosting systemic risk governance: Perspectives and insights from understanding national systems approaches for dealing with disaster and climate risk. Contributing Paper. United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) , Geneva, Switzerland.

New, M., Reckien, D., Viner, D., Adler, C., Cheong, S.-M., Conde, C., Constable, A., de Perez, E., Lammel, A., Mechler, R. , Orlove, B., & Solecki, W. (2022). Decision Making Options for Managing Risk. In: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Eds. Pörtner, H.-O., Roberts, D.C., Tignor, M., Poloczanska, E.S., Mintenbeck, K., Alegria, A., Craig, M., Langsdorf, S., Löschke, S., Möller, V., Okem, A., & Rama, B., pp. 2539-2654 Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/9781009325844.026.