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

Hochrainer-Stigler, S., Mochizuki, J. , Williges, K., & Mechler, R. (2020). Fiscal Resilience and Building Back Better: A Global Analysis for Disaster Risk Reduction Strategies. In: Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience. pp. 213-230 Singapore: Springer. ISBN 978-981-15-4320-3 10.1007/978-981-15-4320-3.

Tonurist, P., Rovenskaya, E. , Mechler, R. , Dieckmann, U. , & Wagner, F. (2020). Public Sector Innovation: Adapting Institutions to Systems Thinking. In: Systemic Thinking for Policy Making: The Potential of Systems Analysis for Addressing Global Policy Challenges in the 21st Century. pp. 143-152 Paris, France: New Approaches to Economic Challenges, OECD Publishing. ISBN 978-92-64-49456-5 10.1787/879c4f7a-en.

Mechler, R. & Hochrainer-Stigler, S. (2019). Generating Multiple Resilience Dividends from Managing Unnatural Disasters in Asia: Opportunities for Measurement and Policy. ADB Economics Working Paper Series no.601. 10.22617/WPS190573-2.

Laurien, F. , Keating, A., Mechler, R. , Etienne, E., Velev, S., Szoenyi, M., McQuistan, C., Ianni, F., & Campbell, K. (2019). Lessons Learned from Measuring Flood Resilience. IIASA Working Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: WP-19-007

Mechler, R. , Schinko, T. , Awasthi, K., Bhatt, S., Chaturvedi, A., Toast, J., Ederer, W., Gupta, A., Singh, M., Malik, S., Rao, V., Sen, S., & Sahany, S. (2019). Climate Risk Management [CRM] Framework for India: Addressing Loss and Damage (L&D). National Institute Of Disaster Management (NIDM) , New Delhi, India.