Economic evaluation of climate change adaptation projects: approaches for the agricultural sector and beyond
This paper identifies key challenges and solutions for carrying out project-level economic analysis of adaptation to climate change, including disaster-oriented adaptation, both stand-alone and integrated into broader development projects. It puts particular emphasis on anticipatory adaptation, though it mentions that the same basic concepts can also be applied to coping measures taken after adverse impacts are realized.
The paper focuses on the agricultural sector, but also highlights some general approaches that are suitable to projects in other sectors as well. It assesses adaptation at the level of specific projects, including probabilistic estimation of monetary losses due to natural disasters, as opposed to sector-level or economy-wide assessments of adaptation potential encountered in the research and policy literatures.