Strategic decision-making in climate risk management: designing local adaptation pathways

Transformative adaptation change for the adaptation to increasing natural hazard risks due to climate change and socioeconomic development, needs to take into account that adaptation policy is designed and implemented within a decision space characterised by (1) competing interests from other policy arenas and (2) previous decisions providing carry-over, follow-up or even lock-in effects for later decisions. Thus, natural hazard management needs to switch from its current focus on ad-hoc cost-benefit decisions to strategic planning that acknowledges how current decisions have long-term implications for the options available in future decisions. The project analyses the key drivers (=pressure and release factors) and how power, interest and discourses between the involved stakeholders play out. Following each decision point, the project tracks not just the pathways of the selected option, but also reconstructs counterfactual pathways for discarded or neglected options. This counterfactual approach illustrates and explains gaps between scientific theory and practical implementation in adaptation processes. By providing a detailed and in-depth study of decisions based on perceptions and preferences regarding climate related risks, we need to analyse individual and societal preferences on how to deal with time, risk, uncertainty, and equity as a starting point for the analysis of the temporal levels of climate change.