Foreword
Climate change is one of the most urgent challenges for people and ecosystems worldwide. The recently published sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stresses the occurrence of widespread adverse impacts of climate change. Increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, as well as slow-onset processes cause enormous losses and damages to human and natural systems. Marginalized groups and people in vulnerable situations are often disproportionally affected. While the impacts of climate change already become more tangible and threatening, action for addressing them remains insufficient. Adaptation to climate change is, thus, becoming a necessity for governments, companies, and private citizens.
To provide practical and scientifically sound guidance on how to conduct vulnerability assessments, GIZ published its Vulnerability Sourcebook in 2014. The Vulnerability Sourcebook was used in over twenty different GIZ partner countries and provides a step-by-step guidance for designing and implementing a vulnerability assessment. It is also one of the methodological foundations for the ISO 14091:2021 standard on vulnerability, impacts and risk assessment for climate change adaptation.
On behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), GIZ mandated EURAC Research in cooperation with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), the University of Salzburg and the United Nations University, Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) to update the Vulnerability Sourcebook and include lessons-learnt from almost 10 years of application to develop the new Climate Risk Sourcebook.
The Climate Risks Sourcebook provides an updated methodological approach on how to design and conduct climate risk assessments and provides the necessary and state-of-the-art knowledge incorporating findings of the sixth Assessment Report of the IPCC. It is a user-friendly, step-by-step guide to operationalizing the theoretical concept of risk. The approach is location and context-specific and gives guidance on how climate risk assessments can inform and support evidence-based decision making. This includes impact chains as tailor-made conceptual models that illustrate key risks and their drivers for a specific context.
The Climate Risk Sourcebook additionally offers expert material for further in-depth knowledge. Another novelty is its focus on communication, gender and vulnerable groups.
We truly believe that climate risk assessments, adapted to the respective context, and carefully executed, are an important prerequisite to identify climate change induced risks to regions, different actor groups and sectors, to manage climate risks effectively and derive options to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
We are convinced that the Climate Risk Sourcebook provides a very useful basis for climate adaptation and risk management practitioners around the globe.