ADAPTATION RESOURCES

Guidance and tools

The ALM shares guidance and tools for developing and implementing adaptation initiatives. Below is a list of materials available for immediate download or online browsing.

User submissions of relevant resources are welcome and encouraged. Please contact us to share guidance and tools, or recommend a resource that you find particularly useful in your work. In addition, national teams and others with completed adaptation planning phases are encouraged to submit case studies to the ALM.

Tools and resources

Many summaries from: Sharing Climate Adaptation Tools: Improving decision-making for development workshop report, sponsored by the Institute for Development Studies (IDS), The World Bank, and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)

COMPUTER-BASED

CRiSTAL • IISD, IUCN, SEI, Intercooperation
This project-based tool is aimed at numerous users and is currently being piloted for Nicaragua, Mali, Tanzania and Sri Lanka in sectors such as agriculture, water resource management, infrastructure, and natural resource management. The tool requires detailed project inputs and vulnerability data. The tool delivers vulnerability and livelihood profiles as well as details for project modification. A parallel tool is being planned which aims to focus on the project portfolio side which would be intended to help programme managers integrate adaptation concerns into their over project portfolio at the strategic planning level. MORE INFORMATION >

Adaptation Wizard • UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP)
The Adaptation Wizard is a web-based tool that is designed to take help users gain a basic understanding of climate change as well as integrate climate risks into their decision-making. It is a high-level, generic tool that is valuable to newcomers to the climate change issue, as well as those who are preparing to adapt. The tool is specifically aimed at the UK context. It is more a decision-support than decision-making tool, and plays a valuable awareness-raising and educational role. The tool does walk users through an economic analysis of adaptation options and scenarios. MORE INFORMATION >

ADAPT • The World Bank
This computer-based tool is multi-sectoral and currently being tested in South Asia, soon expanding to a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. The tool undertakes a sensitivity analysis for specific projects and flags activities that are sensitive to climate change as well as gives advice on adaptation activities. The tool utilises project location and activity information which are screened through a project activity sensitivity matrix based on GCM data. The tool does not utilise specific vulnerability data or adaptation at the sectoral. ADAPT is not explicitly a decision-making tool and does not address sensitivities at the programme level. MORE INFORMATION >

PROCESS-ORIENTED
Climate quick scans • DGIS, The Netherlands
This paper/process based tool is aimed at donors (particularly DGIS) applicable to multiple sectors. This “quick and dirty” process draws on expert advice to screen programmes or projects in order to establish adaptation priorities and raise awareness about climate risks with partner countries. The project draws on various inputs including project or programme details, stakeholder engagement and varying levels of vulnerability data. MORE INFORMATION >

Preparedness for Climate Change • Red Cross/Red Crescent
The guide begins with the basics about climate change: the scientific consensus, the humanitarian consequences, and the general implications for the Red Cross and Red Crescent. This is followed by six thematic modules: Getting started, Dialogues, Communications, Disaster management, Community-based disaster risk reduction and Health. Each module begins with a background section with real-life Red Cross and Red Crescent experiences and perspectives, followed by a “how-to” section with specific step-by-step guidance. DOWNLOAD PDF >

Climate Change Adaptation Guidance Manual • USAID
The Guidance Manual is aimed at USAID country missions to assist in the mainstreaming of climate change adaptation in all projects. At present the manual is being tested in Honduras, South Africa, Mali and Thailand in sectors such as agriculture, coastal development and flooding, water infrastructure, and fisheries and livelihoods. Future projects may cover protected lands management, integrated river basin management, and health. The manual leads project designers through a series of steps to help them understand whether their project may be vulnerable to climate variability or change. The manual encourages stakeholder engagement and provides guidance on where to find more information and assistance in gathering data (i.e. USAID Climate Change Team). DOWNLOAD PDF >

Opportunities and Risks of Climate Change and Disasters (ORCHID) • IDS
This process-based tool is designed to be a light touch screening process for donor programmes. The process utilises quantitative inputs climate science which are applied to the risk assessment of programmes usually at wide scales, and using directional trends rather than discrete figures. The tool utilises project documents and interviews with project staff as well as past trend in vulnerability and disaster risk. ORCHID aims to raise awareness of climate risk management and future climate change among staff, to stimulate dialogue with donor partners, to integrate disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation policies and activities. The process makes recommendations for how programmes might enhance risk management through adaptive practices and cost benefit analysis and sector economic assessment are undertaken for areas where clear adaptation options can be discerned and where sufficient data is available. MORE INFORMATION >

Adaptation Policy Frameworks • UNDP
The APF is a structured approach to formulating and implementing adaptation strategies, policies and measures to ensure human development in the face of climate variability and change. The APF links climate change adaptation to sustainable development and global environmental issues. It is structured around four major principles: Adaptation to short-term climate variability and extreme events serves as a starting point for reducing vulnerability to longer-term climate change; Adaptation policies and measures are assessed in a developmental context; Adaptation occurs at different levels in society, including the local level; The adaptation strategy and the process by which it is implemented are equally important. The APF process can be used for formulating and designing adaptation-related projects, or for exploring the potential to add adaptation considerations to other types of projects. Projects can focus on any population scale, from the village to the national level. MORE INFORMATION >

Other guidance

Guidance notes on tools for mainstreaming disaster risk reduction • ProVention Consortium
The Provention Consortium has recently published a comprehensive compendium of short briefing papers on tools and methods for mainstreaming disaster risk reduction. These approaches have much in common with climate change adaptation, particularly in their approach to tackling current variability, risk frameworks, and approaches to overcoming barriers to cross-sectoral work. MORE INFORMATION >

TOOLS
PRECIS - Providing Regional Climates for Impacts Studies • UK Met Office Hadley Centre
This tool provides climate impact assessments in developing country contexts which are freely available to numerous users. The tool uses GCM (GCM) to provide grid-scale averages of spatio-temporal hydro-climatic state variables as well as soil hydrology and thermodynamics, and some vegetation dynamic variables. The tool is applicable to multiple scales, sectors and levels of screening but is limited fine/point scale information. MORE INFORMATION >

Vulnerability mapping and impact assessment • ILRI, TERI, ACTS, CIAT
This tool utilises GCM outputs, agriculture systems and land use data, GIS and vulnerability data and aims to provide donors (and in the future governments and NGOs) with information on key characteristics in the agriculture sector at the national level. The tool identifies vulnerable populations ("hotspots"), and, in the second phase, assesses climate change impacts and costs and benefits of potential adaptation options. At present the tool is limited to Sub-Saharan Africa and omits other key non-agricultural impacts. DOWNLOAD PDF >

SERVIR Climate Change Mapping Tool • USAID, NASA, CATHALAC, IAGT
This web-based tool is intended to assist users of the USAID Climate Adaptation Guidance Manual to instantly access climate information needed to adaptation projects. The tool is an open platform which is applicable to multiple sectors and is available to various users. The current version focuses on Mesoamerica and is used by Central American disaster planners, TV weather reporters, cruise ship operators, and resource managers, and others. MORE INFORMATION >

Statistical DownScaling Model (SDSM) • Environment Agency, UK
Although not presented at the workshop, this tool’s applicability as a quantitative information provider is applicable to many of the approaches presented at the workshop. This computer-based information tool is open-source and is aimed at donors, governments and impact assessors. The tool provides daily, transient, climate risk information for impact assessment over the 1961-2100 time horizon and has been primarily used for water resource management, though is applicable to multiple sectors. After calibration of data, the tool provides rapid assessments to assist impacts and adaptation analysis. MORE INFORMATION >

Climate Analysis Indicators Tool • WRI
A vulnerability and impacts component of CAIT forms part of this a much wider tool-kit of country-level data on climate change, particularly on greenhouse gas emissions. The database includes information on historical impacts, particularly from disaster events, as well as a range of human development indices. CAIT permits manipulation of this data on a country by country basis, including cross-referencing to mitigation-related data. MORE INFORMATION >

NAPA Platform • UNITAR
The National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) platform is aimed at providing informational support to NAPA country teams, implementing agencies (UNDP, UNEP and World Bank), vulnerability and adaptation experts, and other partners providing NAPA technical assistance. It aims to facilitate the delivery of technical assistance to NAPA teams formulating their NAPA documents, particularly with regards to the synthesis of existing vulnerability and adaptation information, and the formulation of relevant adaptation projects profiles. It provides multi-sectoral information aimed at the programme and project level for Least Developed Countries within the NAPA process. MORE INFORMATION >