The value of structured expert judgment to help assess climate adaptation

Abstract

While climate change continues to accelerate and associated risks are expected to become more intense and complex than previously anticipated, climate adaptation policies and projects remain short-sighted and single hazard-focused, limited in scale, limited in addressing the root causes of exposure and vulnerability, and poorly monitored. Understanding whether societies are on track to adapt or on a pathway towards higher risks is essential but raises many methodological challenges. Assessment methods based on quantitative indicators have been prominent up to now, but they show limitations especially relating to the difficulty of identifying statistical data that capture the complex nature of adaptation and are relevant across contexts. This Perspective paper discusses the case of structured expert judgment methods to assess adaptation status based on a wider range of information (quantitative and qualitative, published and non-published, etc.), therefore offering complementary, alternative methods to assess progress.