Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation: Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Cambridge University Press, 5/28/2012
EAN 9781107607804, ISBN10: 1107607809

Paperback, 592 pages, 27.9 x 21.5 x 2.8 cm
Language: English

This Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report (IPCC-SREX) explores the challenge of understanding and managing the risks of climate extremes to advance climate change adaptation. Extreme weather and climate events, interacting with exposed and vulnerable human and natural systems, can lead to disasters. Changes in the frequency and severity of the physical events affect disaster risk, but so do the spatially diverse and temporally dynamic patterns of exposure and vulnerability. Some types of extreme weather and climate events have increased in frequency or magnitude, but populations and assets at risk have also increased, with consequences for disaster risk. Opportunities for managing risks of weather- and climate-related disasters exist or can be developed at any scale, local to international. Prepared following strict IPCC procedures, SREX is an invaluable assessment for anyone interested in climate extremes, environmental disasters and adaptation to climate change, including policymakers, the private sector and academic researchers.

Foreword
Preface
Summary for policymakers
1. Climate change
new dimensions in disaster risk, exposure, vulnerability and resilience
2. Determinants of risk
exposure and vulnerability
3. Changes in climate extremes and their impacts on the natural physical environment
4. Changes in impacts of climate extremes
human systems and ecosystems
5. Managing the risks from climate extremes at the local level
6. National systems for managing the risks from climate extremes and disasters
7. Managing the risks
international level and integration across scales
8. Toward a sustainable and resilient future
9. Case studies
Annex I. Authors and expert reviewers
Annex II. Glossary of terms
Annex III. Acronyms
Annex IV. List of major IPCC reports
Index.

'Extreme events and their evolution in a changing climate have received extensive treatment in previous reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), but this report goes further by considering management of the risk associated with such events … Because of its integration of disciplinary perspectives, this work is likely to remain relevant for several years and provide the foundation for future synthesis reports … Highly recommended. All academic, professional, and general library collections.' J. Schoof, Choice