IIASA at Adaptation Futures 2016

Organized as part of the Global Programme of Research on Climate Change Vulnerability, Impacts and Adaptation (PROVIA), this year’s event is co-hosted by the European Commission and the Dutch Government and takes place 9-13 May at the Postillion Convention Centre WTC Rotterdam.

Tuesday 10 May: Options and Opportunities for the Loss and Damage Mechanism: Understanding the Roles of Risk Management, Finance and Climate Justice (SC 10.3)

This session, led by Reinhard Mechler and Thomas Schinko, together with colleagues from the London School of Economics and the University of Oxford, aims to inform debate on the Loss and Damage Mechanism.  

Last year in Paris COP21 accorded formal recognition to the Warsaw Loss and Damage Mechanism (WIM) and established WIM as a distinct field of negotiation, separate from adaptation. There is currently very little understanding of the role and potential outcome of the WIM; this sessions aims to advance debate within science and policy by presenting state-of-the-art research on the attribution of extreme weather events and related loss projections, the framing of loss and damage, the potential for climate risk management, and innovative negotiation strategies.

Wednesday 11 May: SP Building Flood Resilience: An Innovative Partnership Integrating Science and Practice (SP 9.2)

In this session Wei Liu and Adriana Keating, together with colleagues from Practical Action UK and the Zurich Insurance Group, will highlight recent progress by the Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance and inform discussions on the different ways to build community resilience through cross-sector partnership.  

Climate change and associated disasters have transformative impacts on development. While the importance of building adaptive capacity and resilience is being increasingly recognized, relevant knowledge is highly fragmented; there is a need for more holistic and cost-effective strategies that truly engage with stakeholders’ needs. The session aims to demonstrate how diverse organisations in the ZFRA work together to operationalize resilience theories and concepts in order to reduce flood risk in communities and support them to build back better.

Adriana Keating will present on “Measuring the impact of investment in community flood resilience: A systems approach to diagnose and assess community flood resilience in Peru” and Wei Liu will present on “Harnessing the power of citizen science to enhance climate and disaster resilience”.

Thursday 12 May: Risk management and Risk Perception (SC 8.1)

In a session focusing on risk management and risk perception Thomas Schinko will present insights gained through an Austrian case study on the operationalization of an iterative climate risk management (CRM) framework.  

Despite considerable uncertainties regarding the exact contribution of anthropogenic climate change to disaster risk, rising losses from extreme events have highlighted the need to comprehensively address climate-related risk. This requires linking climate adaptation to disaster risk management, leading to what has been broadly referred to as climate risk management (CRM). While this concept has received attention in debate, important gaps remain in terms of operationalizing it. By developing and applying a methodological approach to CRM in the decision context of sovereign risk (flooding) in Austria, the usefulness of CRM is tested, providing insights which could help inform other decision-making contexts.

Last edited: 26 January 2017