Socio-Economic Climate Change Risk and Vulnerability Assessments and Methodologies (SECCRVAM)

Some of the first climate change questions any community has to answer, is when and how to react to clear and present dangers and when and how to anticipate the threats that are to come.

Over the years, researchers and practitioners have crafted a wealth of increasingly sophisticated formulae - called risk and vulnerability assessments - for helping societies answer those questions.

The assessments aim to define where communities and nations are most exposed to the expected changes and why these systems are likely to be vulnerable. It’s a combination of causes and consequences on which individuals and policymakers alike can plan their future.

Over the past two decades, the methods and tools of these assessments have mushroomed as interest and urgency around climate change has grown. But this diversity of approaches raises its own question: just which method is the most effective?

In 2012, INTASAVE was enlisted by Adapting to Climate Change in China (ACCC) to survey the vast field of assessment methodology and report back on which ones worked best where and why, and in particular which would be most useful for China's communities and their developing country partners. The project was called SECCRVAM – Socio-Economic Climate Change Risk and Vulnerability Assessment Methodology Report.

In all, 28 of the most widely used methods were compared and contrasted using nine major criteria. The INTASAVE researchers examined the range of approaches – from top-down to bottom-up – to see how they shaped up on factors such as stakeholder engagement, costs and data requirements, among others.

The overall conclusion was that no one method is suitable for all countries and all contexts – the choice depends on conditions on the ground and the best approach is a combination of methods. The study also revealed the gaps and limitations of each method and a holistic incorporation of top-down and bottom-up methodologies.

Four approaches emerged from the pack with a number of common strengths. They proved to be the most flexible, broadly applicable, detailed, affordable and successful. These were:

• The UK’s Climate Change Risk Assessment; for national scale (top-down) vulnerability assessments


• The Community-based Vulnerability Assessment (CBVA) Framework; for community- and organization-level (bottom-up) vulnerability assessments


• The UKCIP Adaptation Wizard


• The UKCIP Business Areas Climate Assessment Tool (BACLIAT)

For communities with scarce resources, the future depends on knowing what is susceptible and why and those answers depend upon the right research methods being applied and the most suitable analyses for each situation, this is what SECCRVAM provides.

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For further information contact: admin@intasave.org or murray.simpson@intasave.org

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This project is providing recommendations and a completed step by step guide for the implementation of a socio-economic climate change risk assessment methodology; as well as reviewing and assessing the current work on socio economic scenarios submitted by the China ASS funded by the Adaptation to Climate Change in China (ACCC) initiative conducted by DFID-China.

 

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[vc_cta_button title="DOWNLOAD" href="http://intasave-caribsave.intasave.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2013/09/SECCRVAM-FInal-Report-INTASAVE-ACCC-October-2012.pdf" color="btn-info" size="wpb_regularsize" icon="none" target="_blank" position="cta_align_right" call_text="Download the SECCRVAM Final Report (PDF)"] [/vc_column] [/vc_row]