Assessing adaptive capacity within regional climate change vulnerability studies—an Alpine example

Adaptive capacity represents a crucial component in the assessment of a region’s vulnerability to climate change. The term adaptive capacity is only fuzzily defined, and determining it is difficult and often neglected in previous studies. In this paper, a newly developed adaptive capacity concept is introduced, with a respective indicator/criteria system and simple aggregation methods. The approach allows for adaptive capacity assessments at 3 levels of specificity (impact specific, sector specific and regional generic). The selection of indicators is tailor-made for Alpine regions, where the approach has been widely tested. The presented approach requires extended stakeholder involvement, namely for the evaluation of the indicators. The overall effort needed for its implementation remains reasonable. The outcome of the assessment exercise does not provide precise objective measurements, but remains an indicative estimation due to the fuzziness and complexity of the underlying concept. The conceptual approach is transferable to other mountain areas and beyond, the selection of indicators however is only valid for the Alpine region. The showcase presents results from the adaptive capacity assessment in the region of South Tyrol, where the method was carried out as part of a climate change vulnerability study. The outcomes indicate a number of issues that future actions could address in order to improve adaptive capacity in the region, namely in the field of prevention measures against meteorological extremes and natural hazards.

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