This study characterizes climate risk, hazard, exposure, vulnerability, and climate adaptation as defined by the IPCC’s Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events (SREX). Climate risk refers to the likelihood over a specified time period of severe alterations in the normal functioning of a community or a society due to hazardous physical events interacting with vulnerable social conditions, leading to widespread adverse human, material, economic, or environmental effects that require an immediate emergency response to satisfy critical human needs and that may require external support for recovery (Figure 3).

Figure 3. - A conceptual framework of risk as a function of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability, based upon the IPCC Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events (SREX) definition of climate risk. Note: the placement of questions on the sticky notes is random, non-exhaustive, but highly relevant to consider when conducting risk mapping and when introducing mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Hazard, exposure, and vulnerability interaction explained

Climate hazard can either be a physical process or an event (hydro-meteorological or oceanographic phenomena) that can harm human health, livelihoods, or natural resources. There is no risk if there is no physical exposure of population, ecosystems, and assets of concern, no matter how severe the hazardous event is. As such, it represents the load that the community has to deal with when exposed to a hazardous event” (Marin-Ferrer et al., 2017, p. 18).

Hazard exposure is simply the presence of people, livelihoods, environmental services and resources, infrastructure, or economic, social, or cultural assets on harms and could be adversely affected.

Vulnerability here refers to the propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected by given climate hazards.

Coping capacity is the ability of people to draw on available skills, resources, and experiences in response to manage adverse climate-induced stressors or shocks.