A preliminary discussion on the opportunities and challenges of linking climate change adaptation with disaster risk reduction

Managing the risks of extreme events such as natural disasters to advance climate change adaptation (CCA) has been a global focus. However, a critical challenge in supporting CCA is to improve its linkage with disaster risk reduction (DRR). Based on discussions on similarities and differences between CCA and DRR concerning their spatial–temporal scales, main focuses, preferred research approaches and methodologies, etc., this paper tentatively put forward an analytical framework of “6W” for linking DRR with CCA. This framework presented preliminary answers to a series of fundamental questions, such as “What is adaptation with respect to disaster risk?” “Why adaptation is needed?” “Who adapt to what?” “How to adapt?” “What are the possible principles to assess the adaptation effect?” To bridge the research gaps between CCA and DRR, it is imperative to associate the adaptation actions with both near-term disaster risk and long-term climate change and formulate adaptation strategies at various spatial–temporal scales by embracing uncertainty in a changing climate.