TY - JOUR
T1 - Climate vulnerability mapping
T2 - A systematic review and future prospects
AU - de Sherbinin, Alex
AU - Bukvic, Anamaria
AU - Rohat, Guillaume
AU - Gall, Melanie
AU - McCusker, Brent
AU - Preston, Benjamin
AU - Apotsos, Alex
AU - Fish, Carolyn
AU - Kienberger, Stefan
AU - Muhonda, Park
AU - Wilhelmi, Olga
AU - Macharia, Denis
AU - Shubert, William
AU - Sliuzas, Richard
AU - Tomaszewski, Brian
AU - Zhang, Sainan
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) under funding received from the National Science Foundation DBI-1639145. Lead author de Sherbinin would like to acknowledge support under NASA contract NNG13HQ04C for the continued operation of the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). To avoid conflicts these authors did not review their own studies. The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of Johannes Flacke, Sara Mehyrar, Abhishek Nair, Eduardo Perez-Molina of ITC-University of Twente in coding case studies. They also wish to thank Alan MacEachren of Pennsylvania State University and the following policy experts for their participation in the first SESYNC workshop in February 2017, and for their reflections on the role of vulnerability mapping in policy contexts: Tegan Blaine (US Agency for International Development, United States), Saleem Khan (formerly of the Tamil Nadu State Climate Change Cell, India), Peter Lukey (Ministry of Environment, South Africa).
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Maps synthesizing climate, biophysical and socioeconomic data have become part of the standard tool-kit for communicating the risks of climate change to society. Vulnerability maps are used to direct attention to geographic areas where impacts on society are expected to be greatest and that may therefore require adaptation interventions. Under the Green Climate Fund and other bilateral climate adaptation funding mechanisms, donors are investing billions of dollars of adaptation funds, often with guidance from modeling results, visualized and communicated through maps and spatial decision support tools. This paper presents the results of a systematic review of 84 studies that map social vulnerability to climate impacts. These assessments are compiled by interdisciplinary teams of researchers, span many regions, range in scale from local to global, and vary in terms of frameworks, data, methods, and thematic foci. The goal is to identify common approaches to mapping, evaluate their strengths and limitations, and offer recommendations and future directions for the field. The systematic review finds some convergence around common frameworks developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, frequent use of linear index aggregation, and common approaches to the selection and use of climate and socioeconomic data. Further, it identifies limitations such as a lack of future climate and socioeconomic projections in many studies, insufficient characterization of uncertainty, challenges in map validation, and insufficient engagement with policy audiences for those studies that purport to be policy relevant. Finally, it provides recommendations for addressing the identified shortcomings. This article is categorized under: Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Values-Based Approach to Vulnerability and Adaptation.
AB - Maps synthesizing climate, biophysical and socioeconomic data have become part of the standard tool-kit for communicating the risks of climate change to society. Vulnerability maps are used to direct attention to geographic areas where impacts on society are expected to be greatest and that may therefore require adaptation interventions. Under the Green Climate Fund and other bilateral climate adaptation funding mechanisms, donors are investing billions of dollars of adaptation funds, often with guidance from modeling results, visualized and communicated through maps and spatial decision support tools. This paper presents the results of a systematic review of 84 studies that map social vulnerability to climate impacts. These assessments are compiled by interdisciplinary teams of researchers, span many regions, range in scale from local to global, and vary in terms of frameworks, data, methods, and thematic foci. The goal is to identify common approaches to mapping, evaluate their strengths and limitations, and offer recommendations and future directions for the field. The systematic review finds some convergence around common frameworks developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, frequent use of linear index aggregation, and common approaches to the selection and use of climate and socioeconomic data. Further, it identifies limitations such as a lack of future climate and socioeconomic projections in many studies, insufficient characterization of uncertainty, challenges in map validation, and insufficient engagement with policy audiences for those studies that purport to be policy relevant. Finally, it provides recommendations for addressing the identified shortcomings. This article is categorized under: Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Values-Based Approach to Vulnerability and Adaptation.
KW - adaptation
KW - climate change
KW - mapping
KW - meta-analysis
KW - social vulnerability
KW - spatial indices
KW - vulnerability
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U2 - 10.1002/wcc.600
DO - 10.1002/wcc.600
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85069925226
VL - 10
JO - Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change
JF - Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change
SN - 1757-7780
IS - 5
M1 - e600
ER -