How well do climate adaptation policies align with risk-based approaches? An assessment framework for cities

Many cities around the world are undertaking adaptation planning processes in contexts of considerable uncertainty due to climate risks. However, new evidence suggests that current adaptation policies are failing to fully incorporate risk-related information and knowledge. Understanding how policies account for current and future risks becomes crucial to assess whether they will effectively contribute to reduce vulnerability and increase resilience. Exploiting the synergies between the well-established discipline of disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation may be an interesting option. In this paper we develop an Adaptation-Risk Policy Alignment (ARPA) framework to assess whether (and how) climate change adaptation policies integrate risk knowledge and information. ARPA displays a set of risk-based metrics that we test in four early adapters cities: Copenhagen, Durban, Quito and Vancouver. These cities are considered pioneer cities in the design and implementation of adaptation plans and have the potential to show the full applicability of ARPA. The framework is easy to apply and allows to systematically assess whether and how policies appropriately account for major risks and properly integrate risk management into the policy-making process. We propose that the framework can be used for self-evaluation and learning as well as in large-scale adaptation tracking exercises.