Evaluating what matters: an evaluation tool for vulnerability risk assessments in local climate change adaptation planning

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has set out guidance to move countries forward via National Adaptation Plans, but many of these have proven non-implementable because they are generic and lack details on community needs. Here we review what vulnerability risk assessments (VRA) characteristics are considered desirable but absent, and thence develop an Evaluation Tool, for systematically analyzing VRAs as used for adaptation planning at the local level. We test it experimentally on an innovative VRA process claiming better outcomes - it uses a preprocess of crystallizing shared values of participants before considering climate issues. The evaluation results show that the Tool can successfully discriminate the quality of this approach and captures many distinct characteristics and differences. The Tool, which can also be a practitioner’s checklist, should thus be helpful in identifying and accelerating improvements in VRAs, and hence in adaptation planning, with affiliated local and global benefits.