Book contribution: What Do Users Expect from Climate Adaptation Services?
How should climate adaptation services be designed that support responsible stakeholders in implementing adaptation measures? IÖW researchers were involved in planning the German Climate Preparedness Portal (www.klivoportal.de) - a meta-portal for climate adaptation and climate information initiated by the Federal Government. On behalf of the Federal Environment Agency IÖW analysed the requirements and expectations of users. The results are published in the "Handbook of Climate Services" in the series "Climate Change Management" by Springer. The researchers draw the following conclusions from two online surveys with a total of 972 participants and 55 qualitative interviews: There is a great demand for services that support assessing risks as well as planning, assessing and implementing measures for adaptation to climate change. However, existing services are hardly known and their quality is often difficult to assess. The authors from IÖW and the Federal Environment Agency show how the conclusions were taken into account in developing the KLiVO portal and give recommendations for climate adaptation services and meta-platforms in general.
Climate adaptation services widely unknown and not sufficiently specific
The authors present the design of their survey and consequences for the development of the Climate Preparedness Portal. The overarching research questions of the study were: What kind of adaptation services do users need? What are the current deficits in meeting user needs? How can climate adaptation services be selected and presented on the KLiVO portal? The result: Although 82 percent of the respondents deal with climate adaptation in their work and the demand for adaptation services is high, only ten percent have used such services so far. Only one in three knew about them at all. Respondents reported that the services are difficult to find, not sufficiently specific, and of indeterminate quality.
Consequences for the German Climate Preparedness Portal
Key recommendations from the survey for the development of the KLiVO portal: The landscape of climate adaptation services needs to be restructured; quality assurance would ensure reliability; communication between users and providers must be improved and must continue when services are on the market. Regarding the KLiVO portal, continuous user integration is realised by an accompanying network of users and providers.
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Bibliographic information:
Hoffmann, Esther; Rupp, Johannes; Sander, Kirsten (2020): What Do Users Expect from Climate Adaptation Services? Developing an Information Platform Based on User Surveys. In: Leal Filho, Walter; Jacob, Daniela (eds.): Handbook of Climate Services, Springer/Cham