Climate Change – Risk and Vulnerability Mapping and Analysis

Example Applications and Reports

• SEDAC (Columbia University) – Climate Impact, Vulnerability, and Adaptation - a major clearinghouse for climate related data, maps, and research
• Climate Wizard - an online mapping site for viewing historical climate data and IPCC scenarios. Very useful for looking at geographic data online before you download it for your own analyses.
• ESRI’s GIS and Climate Change site – case studies, data models, and bibliographies
• NOAA – Digital Coast - http://www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/- NOAA’s array of applications dealing with coastal studies, including the impacts of climate change
• Tufts Global Development and Environment Institute - Climate Change – Costs of Inaction - a series of studies that explore the economic costs of climate change by comparing two scenarios – business as usual (do nothing different) and rapid stabilization. The Florida case study made extensive use of GIS.
• Pacific Institute, The Impacts of Sea-Level Rise on the California Coast (2009)  – vulnerability analysis and mapping – report, maps, and GIS data available for download
• Rutgers, Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis – Vulnerability of New Jersey’s Coastal Habitats to Sea Level Rise - interesting study of what habitats along the Jersey shore will be most affected by sea level rise. Check out other studies at Rutgers Coastal Studies Program.
• South Florida Regional Planning Council – Sea Level Rise Project - detailed studies of South Florida counties, includes draft maps, a report on how it was done and a powerpoint presentation

Peer Reviewed Literature Examples

• Snow, M., & Snow, R. (2009, October). Modeling, monitoring, and mitigating sea level rise. Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal, 20(4), 422-433. Retrieved August 31, 2009, doi:10.1108/14777830910963753

• Clark, George E. et al. Assessing the Vulnerability of Coastal Communities to Extreme Storms: the Case of Revere, MA, USA.  Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 3: 59–82, 1998

• Wu, Shuang-Ye et al. 2002. Vulnerability of Coastal Communities to Sea-Level Rise: A Case Study of Cape May County,New Jersey. Climate Research 22(255-270).

• Michael, Jeffery A. 2007. Episodic Flooding and the Cost of Sea-Level Rise. Ecological Economics 63(1):149-159.

• Brown, Iain. 2006. Modelling future landscape change on coastal floodplains using a rule-based GIS. Environmental Modelling and Software 21(10):1479-1490

Also, look through the journal Disasters (full text articles, tables of contents, available through Tufts Electronic Journals site)