Database support systems for adaptation to climate change: An assessment of web-based portals across scale

Abstract

The widely recognized increase in greenhouse gas emissions is necessitating adaptation to a changing climate, and policies are being developed and implemented worldwide, across sectors, and between government scales globally. The aim of this paper is to reflect on 1 of the major challenges: facilitating and sharing information on the next adaptation practices. Web portals (i.e., websites) for disseminating information are important tools in meeting this challenge, and therefore, we assessed the characteristics of select major portals across multiple scales. We found that there is a rather limited number of case studies available in the portals—between 900 and 1000 in total, with 95 that include cost information and 195 that include the participation of stakeholders globally. Portals are rarely cited by researchers, suggesting a suboptimal connection between the practical, policy-related, and scientific development of adaptation. The government portals often lack links on search results between US and EU websites, for example. With significant investments and policy development emerging in both the US and EU, there is great potential to share information via portals. Moreover, there is the possibility of better connecting the practical adaptation experience from bottom-up projects to the science of adaptation.