Natural Disasters and Adaptation to Climate Change

This volume presents eighteen case studies of natural disasters from Australia, Europe, North America and developing countries. By comparing the impacts, it seeks to identify what moves people to adapt, which adaptive activities succeed and which fail, and the underlying reasons, and the factors that determine when adaptation is required and when simply bearing the impact may be the more appropriate response. Much has been written about the theory of adaptation, and high-level, especially international, policy responses to climate change. This book aims to inform actual adaptation practice – what works, what doesn't, and why. It explores some of the lessons we can learn from past disasters and the adaptation that takes place after the event in preparation for the next. This volume will be especially useful for researchers and decision makers in policy and government concerned with climate change adaptation, emergency management, disaster risk reduction, environmental policy and planning.

Sarah Boulter is a Research Fellow with the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF), Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia where she works on synthesis and communication of adaptation research. She has been involved in the development of programmes of policy guidance development for adaptation, research programmes on historical case studies, the assessment of forest vulnerability in Australia, and as the convenor of Australia's Climate Adaptation conferences. She is a contributing author to the Australia chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report. Her research background includes studies of biodiversity and reproductive ecology of forested systems and the impacts of climate change.

Jean Palutikof is the Director of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF), Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia. At NCCARF, she has built a national programme of adaptation research, communication and partnerships. Her work at NCCARF has convinced her of the need for case studies of good practice in adaptation action, to build adaptive capacity and knowledge amongst decision makers. Such good practice examples are hard to come by - hence this book, which seeks to extrapolate from responses to natural hazards to understand the perils and pitfalls around adapting to climate change. Prior to joining NCCARF, Professor Palutikof managed the production of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report for Working Group II (Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability), while based at the UK Met Office. Prior to joining the Met Office, she was a Professor at the School of Environmental Sciences and Director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Her research interests focus on climate change impacts and adaptation, and the application of climatic data to economic and planning issues.

David John Karoly is Professor of Climate Science in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne. He is an internationally recognised expert in climate change and climate variability, including greenhouse climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion and interannual climate variations due to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. He was heavily involved in preparation of the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC. He joined the University of Melbourne in 2007 as an ARC Federation Fellow funded by the Australian Government. He is a member of the new Climate Change Authority in Australia, the Science Advisory Panel to the Australian Climate Commission and the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists.

Daniela Guitart is an environmental scientist working at the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF), Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia. At NCCARF she coordinates the Adaptation Research Network activities and manages the production of information tools that communicate climate change adaptation research. Prior to joining NCCARF, she was conducting research on community-based urban agriculture, and its contribution to food security and the conservation of agricultural biodiversity.