Reinhard Mechler
Research Group Leader and Senior Research Scholar
Systemic Risk and Resilience Research Group
Advancing Systems Analysis Program
Contact
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
Hochrainer-Stigler, S., Laurien, F , Velev, S., Keating, A., & Mechler, R. (2020). Standardized disaster and climate resilience grading: A global scale empirical analysis of community flood resilience. Journal of Environmental Management 276 e111332. 10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.111332.
ADB & OECD (2020). Leveraging Technology and Innovation for Disaster Risk Management and Financing. Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) , Manila/Paris. 10.22617/TCS200393-2.
Handmer, J., Hochrainer-Stigler, S., Schinko, T. , Gaupp, F., & Mechler, R. (2020). The Australian wildfires from a systems dependency perspective. Environmental Research Letters 15 (12) e121001. 10.1088/1748-9326/abc0bc.
Mechler, R. , Stevance, A.-S., & Deubelli, T. (2020). 2nd Consultation Report. Bouncing Forward Sustainably: Pathways to a post-COVID World. Governance for Sustainability. IIASA-ISC
French, A., Mechler, R. , Arestegui, M., MacClune, K., & Cisneros, A. (2020). Root causes of recurrent catastrophe: The political ecology of El Niño-related disasters in Peru. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 47 e101539. 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2020.101539.