Climate vulnerability mapping: A systematic review and future prospects

Abstract

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

Drought Risk to Agricultural Systems in Zimbabwe: A Spatial Analysis of Hazard, Exposure, and Vulnerability

“…Composite-indicator approaches are very valuable for aggregating multiple underlying vulnerability factors [54,66,82,101], though using large datasets has certain limitations. Vulnerability indicators must address multiple dimensions that are highly relevant in the context of drought [7,42,64]; however, aggregating individual indicators in a coherent manner reflecting reality is challenging [63].…”

“…Exposure is derived from the integrated analysis of the hazard data with a dataset differentiating between rainfed and irrigated crops provided by Landmann et al (2019) [61]. To assess vulnerability, a composite indicator-based approach is applied [42,[63][64][65], comprising a widespread approach to assessing vulnerability and risk associated with climate-related hazards [66]. The drought vulnerability indicator selection is based on a systematic literature review focusing on drought vulnerability in Africa and Zimbabwe.…”

Sea-level rise and human migration

“…The processes influencing migration are difficult to incorporate into demographic projections. Instead, those seeking to quantify how SLR will affect future populations identify geographic 'hotspots' 71,141 . The extent of coastal urbanization provides clear motivation for institutions in these 'hotspots' to prevent SLR-related migration or, in the case where prevention is unfeasible, facilitate migration to safer locales.…”

Global-scale drought risk assessment for agricultural systems

“…It can have manifold impacts on social, ecological and economic systems, for instance agricultural losses, public water shortages, reduced hydropower supply, and reduced labor or productivity. While many sectors are affected by drought, agriculture's high dependency on water means it is often the first of the most heavily affected sectors (Dilley et al, 2005;UNDRR, 2019). With nearly 1.4 billion people (18 % of the global population) employed in agriculture, droughts threaten the livelihoods of many and hamper the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) -notably SDG 1 (no poverty), SDG 2 (zero hunger), SDG 3 (good health and well-being) and SDG 15 (life on land).…”

“…At the global scale several studies have been published in recent years, focusing on the assessment of flood risk (Hirabayashi et al, 2013;Ward et al, 2013Ward et al, , 2014, seismic risk (Silva et al, 2018), cyclone risk (Peduzzi et al, 2012) or multi-hazard risk (e.g., Dilley et al, 2005;Peduzzi et al, 2009;Welle and Birkmann, 2015;Garschagen et al, 2016;INFORM, 2019;Koks et al, 2019;UNDRR, 2019). While major progress has been made regarding the mapping, prediction and monitoring of drought events at the global scale (e.g., Yuan and Wood, 2013;Geng et al, 2013;Spinoni et al, 2013Spinoni et al, , 2019bDamberg and AghaKouchak, 2014;Hao et al, 2014;Carrão et al, 2017), very few studies have assessed either exposure to drought hazards (Güneralp et al, 2015) or drought risk at the global level (Carrão et al, 2016;Dilley et al, 2005;Li et al, 2009). The study by Carrão et al (2016) presents the first attempt to map drought risk at the global scale while considering drought hazard (based on precipitation deficits), exposure (population, livestock, crops, water stress) and societal vulnerability (based on social, economic and infrastructural indicators).…”