Global Geographical Distribution of Vulnerability to Climate Change

Introduction | Report | Maps| Citation | Acknowledgements | Disclaimer

It is important to understand the nature of the risks from climate change, where natural and human systems are likely to be most vulnerable, and what may be achieved by adaptive responses. Recently, a group of scientists and researchers from Wesleyan University, the University of Illinois, the Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI) of University of Maryland and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) of the U.S. Department of Energy, and Columbia University conducted a synthetic assessment of the global distribution of vulnerability to climate change.

The assessment and mapping effort was based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report (TAR) and the IPCC scenarios from the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES). The assessment used the Vulnerability-Resilience Indicator Model (VRIM) of PNNL-JGCRI, the Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) jointly created by the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy (YCELP) and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) at Columbia University, and the Country Specific Model for Intertemporal Climate (COSMIC) from the Climate Research Group of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The report on the synthetic assessment of the global distribution of vulnerability to climate change, with a complete set of maps and data, is released on this site in order to provide open access and feedback by the scientific community.

 

Report:

View and download the complete report  in pdf  (12.6 MB). Printing Tip: print figures 4–9 in landscape to obtain the best results for the maps.

 

Global Distribution Maps:

View and download the complete set of maps in pdf (144 maps, 1.1 MB each)

 

Citation:

Yohe, G., E. Malone, A. Brenkert, M. Schlesinger, H. Meij, X. Xing, and D. Lee. 2006. “A Synthetic Assessment of the Global Distribution of Vulnerability to Climate Change from the IPCC Perspective that Reflects Exposure and Adaptive Capacity.” Palisades, New York: CIESIN (Center for International Earth Science Information Network), Columbia University. http://ciesin.columbia.edu/data/climate/ [access date].

 

Acknowledgements:

This release is supported as an exploratory activity by the NASA-funded Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) at CIESIN at Columbia University, pending formal approval by the SEDAC User Working Group.

 

Disclaimer:

All the mapping is at a national or country level. Most subnational boundaries are removed for clarity. The mapping terms “country,” “nation,” or “national” do not imply any judgment on the legal status of any territory, or any endorsement or acceptance of disputed boundaries, on the part of CIESIN, the Trustees of Columbia University, or the data providers. The views expressed in the paper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of CIESIN, the Earth Institute, Columbia University, or NASA.