Climate change impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016

Strengthening the knowledge base
increment in the forests available for wood supply
and the production of round wood. Global Forest
Resources Assessments are produced every five years
(FAO, 2016), and similar reports are also produced
for Europe by UNECE/FAO, with the latest report
being from 2015 (UNECE and FAO, 2015). The JRC ( 147 )
collects and assesses data on forest disturbances
(including fires), forest ecosystem services, forests
and the EU bio-economy, and forests and climate
change. The final category includes data on tree species
distributions, tree species habitat suitability, forest
type habitat suitability, and habitat suitability under
scenarios of climate change.
The EU Common Fisheries Policy ( 148 ) includes fisheries
management and aims to achieve maximum sustainable
yields for all stocks by 2015 where possible, and at the
latest by 2020, and to reduce unwanted catches and
wasteful practices to the minimum, or to avoid them
altogether, through the gradual introduction of a landing
obligation. A Data Collection Framework ( 149 ) is in place,
managed by the JRC. In addition, Eurostat collects data
on fisheries ( 150 ). These data include catches, landings
and discards, and some of the data are potentially
relevant for climate change adaptation.
7.3 Climate change adaptation
monitoring, reporting and evaluation
The interest in monitoring, reporting and evaluation
(MRE) of adaptation policies and actions has grown
during the past years at the global, EU and national
levels. The EEA recently published the report 'National
monitoring, reporting and evaluation of climate change
adaptation in Europe' (EEA, 2015a). This report covers,
among other things, the development and publication
of the EU Strategy on adaptation to climate change and
the growing number of countries that are developing
adaptation strategies and have begun to implement
adaptation actions. The demand to understand if these
strategies and actions work (or not), in which contexts
and why has increased.
7.3.1 National monitoring, reporting and evaluation
of adaptation
The EEA 2015 report uses the following definitions.
Monitoring is defined as: 'to keep track of progress
made in implementing an adaptation intervention
by using systematic collection of data on specified
indicators and reviewing the measure in relation to its
objectives and inputs, including financial resources.'
Evaluation refers to 'a systematic and objective
assessment of the effectiveness of climate adaptation
plans, policies and actions, often framed in terms of
the impact of reducing vulnerability and increasing
resilience'.
MRE at the national level is challenging owing to many
factors, including long time scales, uncertainty, shifting
baselines and contexts, unclear and multiple policy
goals and objectives, a lack of a causal link between
policies and indicators, the diversity of key concepts
and definitions, a lack of appropriate data, and
resource constraints.
Despite these challenges, 14 EEA member countries
have MRE approaches in place or are developing
these. For most of these countries, the main aim is to
monitor and report on the progress achieved in the
implementation of actions and policies included in
NASs or NAPs. Only a few countries are in the stage of
evaluation, and one of the main reasons for this is that
adaptation is still a new policy area in most countries.
The following types of adaptation indicators are in
place or are being developed by countries:
• a process-based approach defines the key stages
in a process that could realistically be expected to
contribute to positive adaptation outcomes, without
specifying those outcomes at the outset;
• an output-based approach follows the direct results
of an adaptation policy or action, without assessing
if these results actually lead to better adaptation
outcomes;
• an outcome-based approach seeks to define an
explicit outcome, or result, of the adaptation
action, indicating reduced vulnerability or increased
adaptive capacity.
The EEA 2015 report shows that, in most countries
with MRE approaches in place, they are process‐based
approaches. Some countries assess changes in
vulnerability or adaptive capacity, in either qualitative
or quantitative ways. There is a need for further
development of methodologies that can be used
across countries. The report concludes that a 'mixed
( 147 ) http://forest.jrc.ec.europa.eu.
( 148 ) http://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/cfp/index_en.htm.
( 149 ) http://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/cfp/fishing_rules/data_collection/index_en.htm.
( 150 ) http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Fishery_statistics.
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