Tracking Climate Adaptation Progress: Tools, Methods and Metrics

This Topical Collection explores how progress in climate change adaptation can be measured in ways that are scientifically robust, socially just, and policy relevant. It focuses on the methods, metrics, and indicators used to define and assess adaptation effectiveness across scales and contexts.

The Collection welcomes interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research addressing conceptual, methodological, and empirical challenges in adaptation measurement, including comparability, attribution, baselines, data limitations, and the balance between output-, outcome-, and impact-based approaches. It also encourages work that integrates equity, inclusion, and justice into adaptation assessment.

Contributions may draw on quantitative and qualitative evidence, mixed methods, Indigenous and local knowledge, and practitioner perspectives. The Collection particularly seeks to amplify scholarship from the Global South and research that highlights locally led adaptation and context-specific understandings of resilience, vulnerability, and climate risk.

This Collection aims to advance the evidence base for tracking adaptation progress and inform ongoing international efforts to strengthen adaptation assessment.

Participating journal

Submit your manuscript to this collection through the participating journal.

Climatic Change

Journal

Climatic Change

Climatic Change is an international English-language journal which offers an interdisciplinary forum for the scientific exchange on problems related to climatic variations.

Publishing model: Hybrid
Journal Impact Factor: 4.8 (2024)
Downloads: 2.7M (2025)
Submission to first decision (median): 23 days

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Editors

Esther A. Onyango PhD

Esther A. Onyango PhD

CSIRO, Canberra, Australia.

Dr Esther Onyango is a Senior Scientist and Advisor whose work bridges climate science, health, and systems change to inform adaptation policy and practice. Her expertise includes climate-related health risks and adaptation, vulnerability assessment, food systems resilience, systems modelling, and participatory approaches that strengthen locally grounded decision-making. She contributed to the IPCC Working Group II Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) as a Contributing Author, Chapter Scientist and Expert Reviewer. She holds a PhD in Environmental Science from Griffith University focused on climate change and human health risks.
Patrina Dumaru PhD

Patrina Dumaru PhD

GNS Science, Lower Hutt, New Zealand.

Patrina is a climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction specialist with expertise in integrated knowledge management, vulnerability assessment, monitoring and evaluation systems, and gender and social inclusivity. She has supported Pacific governments and regional organisations to strengthen adaptation planning and resilience measurement, including through the development of the monitoring and evaluation framework for the Framework for Resilient Development in the Pacific. Before joining Earth Sciences New Zealand in 2021, she was a Lecturer and Fellow in Human Geography at the University of the South Pacific. Her work spans climate policy, social impact assessment, gender and social inclusivity, and integrated vulnerability assessments across the Pacific.
Andrew Emmanuel Okem PhD

Andrew Emmanuel Okem PhD

Deltares, Delft, The Netherlands.

Dr Andrew Emmanuel Okem is a climate governance and adaptation specialist. He previously worked as a climate governance adaptation researcher at the International Water Management Institute. He has contributed to past IPCC reports, including the Working Group II Sixth Assessment Report, the Special Report on Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, and the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C. He holds a PhD in Policy and Development Studies from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Aditi Mukherji PhD

Aditi Mukherji PhD

CGIAR, Montpellier, France.

Dr Aditi Mukherji is a Principal Scientist – Climate Action at the International Livestock Research Institute since July 2025 and the lead of the Livestock and Climate Solutions Hub. Before this, she was the Director of the Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Impact Action Platform of the CGIAR. Aditi is a Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) of the Technical Guidelines for Adaptation and Impacts in the AR7 cycle of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Her areas of specialisation include climate change adaptation, natural resource management, groundwater governance, energy-irrigation nexus, and community resource management. She is a human geographer by training and holds a PhD from Cambridge University.
Frank Sperling

Frank Sperling

CSIRO, Brisbane, Australia.

Frank Sperling, driven by a deep interest in sustainable and resilient development paths, draws on 25 years of international experience translating science into strategies and practice. This includes roles as an Environment Specialist at the World Bank, where he engaged in pioneering work on mainstreaming adaptation into development sectors, and later as Chief Climate Change Specialist at the African Development Bank leading work on green growth in Africa. As Senior Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO, he currently focuses on the preparedness of Australian farming and agri-food systems for diverse, plausible futures. He has also published widely and contributed as a lead author (AR5) and contributing author (SREX) with the IPCC.