The following table defines key terms used throughout this report.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Adaptation | The process or outcome of adjusting to a new set of climatic attributes, from those already existing that leads to a reduction in harm (or risk of harm) associated with climate variability and climate change. Adaptation can be spontaneous or planned, and can be carried out in response to or in anticipation of changes in climatic conditions. |
| Adaptive capacity | The ability of a system to adjust to climate change (including climate variability and extremes), to moderate potential damages, to take advantage of opportunities, and/or to cope with the consequences. A systems ‘adaptive capacity’ may be based on aspects such as the governance structure, policy, decision-making processes, and resources a. |
| Adaptation planning | The practice of identifying, assessing, prioritising and implementing options to adapt to climate change, including the process of monitoring, reviewing and adjusting decisions made. |
| Better practice criteria | In this project references are made to better practice criteria. Better practice criteria intend to describe the key components that collectively foster effective adaptation. Criteria can be used by municipalities to develop and implement a climate change adaptation plan. |
| Consequence | A measure to describe who and what is affected by a climatic event and how severely affected they are. Consequence is often used in combination with likelihood to better understand climate risks. |
| Control and influence | Organisations may drive the adaptation agenda, using various means:
Control: those areas where the organisation is the prime decision-maker and can generate immediate impact without the necessary intervention of others, e.g. for local government, through Council policy and planning measures and resilience activities funded directly through capital works budgets.
Influence: the ability of an organisation to affect decision making of external stakeholders, e.g. for local government, actively engage transport authorities to align anticipated infrastructural projects, or drive behavioural change among the general public through awareness campaigns. |
| Cumulative impacts | An impact which results from the incremental impact of the action when added to other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions. Cumulative impacts can result from individually minor but collectively significant actions taking place over a period of time |
| Downscaling | The practice of deriving finer regional or temporal detail of climate variables from global and regional climate models. Downscaling is important in creating a better understanding of climatic conditions at a local level to properly assess risks and tailor design adaptation responses accordingly. |
| Ecosystem services | Ecosystem services support agricultural productivity and add to the liveability and wellbeing of communities. Ecosystem services can be grouped into four categories:
Provisional services: fisheries, pharmaceuticals, sand, etc
Cultural services: recreation, aesthetics, amenity, spiritual values
Regulatory services: storm protection, erosion buffers, flood and disease control
Supporting services: habitat, biodiversity, nutrient cycling, gas cycling, biogeochemical services |
| Exposure | Exposure refers to changes in the climate – temperature, precipitation and sea level. The potential impact is the change in conditions that results in heat waves, drought, flooding, wind, hail, cyclones, bushfires, coastal inundation and relative humidity. |
| Flexible or adaptive management options | Incremental adaptation options that can be applied one step at a time, so they can be modified if new information becomes available or the situation changes. For example, a sea wall that is designed and built so that it may be easily enhanced in the future for rising sea levels of increased impacts from storm surges. |
| Likelihood | Likelihood refers to the assessment of an outcome or result which has occurred or will occur in the future. Likelihood may be based on statistical or modelling analyses, elicitation of expert views, or other quantitative analyses. Likelihood is often used in combination with consequence to better understand climate risks. |
| Low-regrets options | Adaptation options for which the associated costs are relatively low and for which the benefits, although primarily realised under projected future climate change, may be relatively large. |
| No regrets options | Adaptation options deliver benefits that exceed their costs, regardless of the nature of future projected impacts of climate change. |
| Priority action | An adaptation action that has been prioritised for implementation. Generally speaking, an action will be prioritised if it is one of ‘no or low regrets’, corresponds to a catastrophic/high risk and/or addresses multiple risks at once. |
| Resilience | The capacity of a system, enterprise or a person to maintain its core purpose and integrity in the face of dramatically changed circumstances. |
| Risk assessment | The practice of identifying, assessing and prioritising climate change risks. Risk assessments are pivotal to climate adaptation approaches, as they enable a robust and rigorous response to potential impacts. |
| Sensitivity | Sensitivity refers to the responsiveness of an organisation to its physical location and its population. For example, in Local Government, the location of the Municipality determines its sensitivity to climate effects. |
| Vulnerability | Vulnerability refers to the degree to which an organisation is susceptible to manage changes in climate. The components of vulnerability include the combination of exposure, sensitivity, adaptive capacity and potential impacts. |
| Co-benefit/ Win-Win options | Adaptation options that have the desired result in terms of minimising the climate change risks or exploiting potential opportunities but also have other social, environmental or economic benefits. |
Appendix 5 - Process for prioritising regional projects
Appendix 7 - References
