Browse Research

Climate change induces disruptions of our ecosystems, and the transition to a low-carbon economy significantly affects the political, economic and social landscapes. This Climate Brief gives an overview of the degree of implementation of climate-related scenario analysis to evaluate risks and opportunities by 2,003 companies surveyed in 2017.

This briefing looks at the Adaptation, Vulnerability and Ecosystems Project in El Salvador; through it the authors explore how to judge EbA effectiveness and discuss some of the policy, institutional and capacity-related hurdles — and opportunities — to rolling out EbA more fully across the country.

IISD's Big Data for Resilience Storybook explores the links between Big Data and resilience building through a new resilience lens. Aimed at an audience of resilience and development practitioners, the Storybook offers diverse experiences and practice-based recommendations to leverage Big Data’s potential and address its risks as part of efforts to build resilience. The Storybook is a collaborative initiative that features the experiences of seven international organizations working at the intersection of Big Data and resilience in vulnerable settings:

This report broadens the ways for defining and measuring poverty. It introduces a multi-dimensional poverty measure that is anchored on household consumption and the international poverty line of $1.90 per person per day, but broadens the measure by including information on access to education and basic infrastructure. In addition, in a sample of six countries, the multidimensional approach was extended to include two more dimensions—on health and nutrition and on security from crime and natural disaster.

The El Niño event in 2015/2016 was one of the strongest since at least 1950. Drought during the event amplified disruption to public water supply in Botswana’s capital and contributed to unprecedented hydroelectric load shedding across Zambia. In Kenya, moderate precipitation during the El Niño brought localized floods to Nairobi and other areas. Yet, during the 2015/2016 El Niño, fluctuations in precipitation were not extreme considering the strength of the El Niño event. Results, therefore, highlight that even fairly moderate precipitation anomalies can contribute to major disruption to economic activity.