Abstract
In this talk we will present methods and results and discuss experiences on climate risk assessment with impact chains on national to sub-national level. The methods are following a general assessment framework which has been developed by Eurac Research for projects with the German Environment Agency and the German Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit – GIZ.
The concept has been applied in more than ten national climate risk assessments worldwide (E.g. Burundi, Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, Madagascar) and has been perceived as a very useful tool for analysis as well as for communication of complex cause-effect relationships in climate change impacts and risks.
For an operational risk assessment, impact chains serve as a basis for the selection of appropriate indicators as well as a backbone for the aggregation of indicators to composite risk indicators. Furthermore, they serve as conceptual model to identify entry points for adaptation measures. Operational assessments based on impact chains can combine data and model driven approaches with expert-based approaches. Due to their systematic structure, impact chains are well suited for spatially explicit GIS based assessments.