Handbook for assessing loss and damage in vulnerable communities

This publication is primarily concerned with assessing loss and damage in poor, rural areas that are vulnerable to the effects of climate change, but alternative applications of the handbook are outlined in section 7. This methodological handbook aims to provide researchers and practitioners on the ground with a set of tools to conduct high-quality studies on loss and damage as well as adaptation limits and constraints. To achieve this, the handbook divides the assessment of loss and damage in vulnerable communities into seven research domains:

1. Climatic stressors and perceptions of climatic change;
2. Livelihood vulnerability;
3. Preventive risk reduction measures;
4. Loss and damage related to the impacts of climatic events and changes that actors have not been able to avoid through preventive risk reduction measures;
5. Adaptation to climatic changes and their impacts;
6. Coping with impacts of climate-related events;
7. Loss and damage related to the costs and adverse side effects of coping and adaptation measures adopted in response to climatic stressors.

This handbook presents different research tools and instruments to study these seven research domains.