The Role of Data Science in Climate Change Adaptation

Climate change is one of the most substantial challenges of our time, its influence will persist for centuries. It will have enduring and far-reaching effects on the environment, businesses, economies, governments, and societies across the globe. Current and future impacts of shifting weather patterns, rising temperatures, and increasing storm intensities underscore the need for adaptive, affordable, and positive responses. The design and implementation of responses must be based on a clear understanding of both already observed and future changes and their local or regional relevance. Defensible responses must be based on relevant data and information. 

Climate-change Data and Information: 

Climate changes manifest in temperature and precipitation changes that include magnitudes or intensities, geographical distributions, and frequencies. They also manifest in changes in physical processes and properties that are driven by temperature and precipitation. Examples of these include soil moisture content, evaporation rates, rainfall runoff, streamflow, and growing degree days. Because of the complexity of the interactions between earth and climate systems, credible sources for climate-change data and information must use a large suite of sets of peer-reviewed observational data and calculated parameters that describe and project potential hazards that will result from climate changes. To ensure a broad range of application, organizations should be equipped with a suite of indicators that describe hazard potentials at scales that range from site-specific to regional, and that can be tailored to specific interests over a range of disciplines. 

Risk Assessment, Vulnerability Mapping, and Data Utilization: 

A clear and defensible understanding of areas and sites that may be susceptible to climate-related hazards is essential in identifying and estimating the magnitudes of potential hazard-driven risks. Indicator sets and tools can be designed to correspond to specific information needs, and to provide information that can support development of defensible, science-based mitigation strategies. Organizations are seeking data products and tools that enable the creation of maps (see below) to clearly identify sites, areas, or regions that are potentially vulnerable to climate-related hazards. By understanding risks and risk levels, asset and portfolio managers, company leaders, communities, governments, land-management entities, non-governmental organizations, policymakers, and others can prioritize resources and optimize their use to design and implement focused adaptation and/or mitigation measures. These might include construction of resilient infrastructure, development of early warning systems, land-use changes, supply chain realignments, and community-preparedness programs. 

One example of the utility of a climate science data platform and its tools lies within the field of agriculture. Agricultural planning in both the near and long term reflects anticipated influences of precipitation and temperatures on all aspects of agricultural operations. The ability to provide climate data and soil-condition information at essentially field scale can enable farmers to make better-informed decisions about crop selection, timing, location, and management. These capabilities can affect productivity and can be conducive to the use of more-sustainable practices that can contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation. They also have the capacity to benefit agribusiness over a range of scales. 

Earth Knowledge ForesightTM

Emerging Recommendations and Regulation: 

The last decade has seen the emergence of recommendation frameworks for the reporting of climate- and nature-based data and information attendant to financial industry operations (TCFD, TNFD). Many companies are already using these evolving guides for environmentally relevant information in annual disclosure reports. Legislation targeting climate concerns also has recently emerged in the European Union. European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), released in 2023, are the first requirements to specifically identify information related to climate change that must be included in company disclosures. These standards undoubtedly encourage non-EU entities to commit to TCFD or TNFD recommendations [More about TNFD]. It is likely that, as governments worldwide develop or intensify efforts to combat climate change, regulatory requirements will become more stringent and reporting requirements more comprehensive.  

Conclusion: 

Climate change has been happening for decades and will continue. Its effects are measurable and will persist, for centuries, affecting the entire planet. The ability to identify and measure changes will be an increasingly important part of business intelligence, community planning, and governmental policies in the short term and in the future. Data and information describing observed and projected changes must be defensible, accessible, and readily useable to support the development and implementation of measures to identify, estimate, and address current and projected risks. They also must be available at spatial and time scales that enable clear understanding of the issues and development of optimal responses across a wide range of disciplines, interests, and concerns.