Climate risk archetypes. Identifying similarities and differences of municipal risks for the adaptation process based on municipalities in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany

Abstract

Municipalities are often challenged in adapting to climate change impacts, with knowledge gaps regarding climate risks being an important constraint hindering the development and implementation of adaption strategies. Although at the municipal level, risks are highly context specific, recurring patterns of hazard, exposure and vulnerability can often be identified. While indicator-driven climate risk assessments are widely used, they tend to apply a singular explanatory model instead of addressing the heterogeneity of cases and thus neglect similarities and differences of risk typologies. We use archetype analysis to gain a context-specific understanding of recurring patterns of municipal-scale climatic risk in the federal state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany. Using cluster analysis, we derive nine climate risk archetypes with characteristic building block configurations of hazard, exposure and vulnerability indicators. Our findings thus contribute to the building of a knowledge base, which can foster and support the formation of climate adaption networks. We argue, that our proposed archetype approach can fuel the debate on mainstreaming adaption practices in general as well as in Baden-Wuerttemberg in particular.