Adaptation metrics: current landscape and evolving practices

The document examines the challenges of measuring climate change adaptation, noting that most existing frameworks are designed for project-level monitoring rather than national or global assessment. It argues against a 'one-size-fits-all' metric, suggesting instead that metrics be tailored to specific purposes—such as identifying needs, tracking implementation, or assessing effectiveness. The paper highlights evolving practices in agriculture, urban planning (using the City of Melbourne as a case study), and multilateral development bank (MDB) financing, while recommending the integration of qualitative data, new technologies like earth observation, and alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to improve the comparability and transparency of adaptation tracking.

• Adaptation metrics are currently fragmented and lack a 'one-size-fits-all' solution because their selection must depend on the specific purpose, such as the allocation of funding versus learning, and the scale of communication.
• Most existing adaptation frameworks are designed for Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) at the community, project, or sector level, which prevents consistent comparison and assessment at national and global scales.
• Composite indices for climate risk and vulnerability are highly sensitive to design choices—such as weighting and normalization—meaning different indices can produce vastly different country rankings for the same year.
• The Paris Agreement's global stocktake faces challenges in meeting criteria for a global assessment framework because it lacks transparent, consistent, or comparable metrics, relying instead on flexible national reporting.
• The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Sendai Framework provide more robust models for global tracking than the Paris Agreement because they utilize quantitative indicators and monitoring systems designed for aggregation.
• In the agricultural sector, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) proposes using existing SDG indicators to track adaptation and resilience, while emphasizing that qualitative indicators are necessary to complement numeric values.
• Urban adaptation metrics are most standardized in the 'risks' category (e.g., flood plains or tree canopy cover), whereas 'process' and 'impact' indicators remain highly context-specific and harder to aggregate globally.
• The City of Melbourne utilizes a mixture of quantitative data (e.g., Lidar for canopy cover) and qualitative data (e.g., community surveys on heat perception) to track adaptation and validate model assumptions.
• Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) are moving toward a 'results chain' approach for resilience metrics, distinguishing between 'asset-level' resilience (the project itself) and 'system-level' resilience (the wider community or ecosystem).
• The World Bank is developing a two-dimension resilience rating system (graded A+ to D) to help private investors assess both the resilience of an investment and the extent to which that investment builds resilience for others.
• Technological advancements, specifically mobile phone-based surveys and earth observation data (such as the EU's Copernicus Programme), offer cost-effective ways to overcome data gaps in adaptation tracking.

APA

Leiter, T., Olhoff, A., Al Azar, R., Barmby, V., Bours, D., Clement, V. W. C., Dale, T. W., Davies, C., & Jacobs, H. (2019). Adaptation metrics: current landscape and evolving practices. World Resources Institute. https://files.wri.org/s3fs-public/uploads/Adaptation_Metrics_Paper_-_Global_Commission_on_Adaptation.pdf

Chicago

Leiter, Timo, Anne Olhoff, Rima Al Azar, Vicki Barmby, Dennis Bours, Viviane Wei Chen Clement, Thomas William Dale, Craig Davies, and Heather Jacobs. Adaptation metrics: current landscape and evolving practices. World Resources Institute, 2019. https://files.wri.org/s3fs-public/uploads/Adaptation_Metrics_Paper_-_Global_Commission_on_Adaptation.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Leiter |first1=Timo |last2=Olhoff |first2=Anne |last3=Al Azar |first3=Rima |last4=Barmby |first4=Vicki |last5=Bours |first5=Dennis |last6=Clement |first6=Viviane Wei Chen |last7=Dale |first7=Thomas William |last8=Davies |first8=Craig |last9=Jacobs |first9=Heather |title=Adaptation metrics: current landscape and evolving practices |publisher=World Resources Institute |date=2 September 2019 |url=https://files.wri.org/s3fs-public/uploads/Adaptation_Metrics_Paper_-_Global_Commission_on_Adaptation.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{leiter2019adaptation, author = {Leiter, Timo and Olhoff, Anne and Al Azar, Rima and Barmby, Vicki and Bours, Dennis and Clement, Viviane Wei Chen and Dale, Thomas William and Davies, Craig and Jacobs, Heather}, title = {{Adaptation metrics: current landscape and evolving practices}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, year = {2019}, month = sep, url = {https://files.wri.org/s3fs-public/uploads/Adaptation_Metrics_Paper_-_Global_Commission_on_Adaptation.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }