In the last decade or so, there has been a significant increase in climate-related financing for small island states. However, monitoring and tracking of funding and metrics to evaluate overall impact are lacking . Research into adaptation costs could benefit from the inclusion of indirect effects of climate change such as psychological costs  but to date this research is missing. Greater effort could also be placed on quantifying the relationship between adaptation costs and adverse events . There is also a need for overall land use planning guidelines in small coastal communities, including small islands . The usefulness and utility of insurance mechanisms for building resilience to climate hazards require up-to-date information on assets at risk  and further exploration of adaptation measures in small island contexts . Additionally, the differences between theoretical adaptation practices and observed results from actual implementation, along with the integration of IKLK and external knowledge, are currently not well understood . Documenting experience-based knowledge of adaptation projects and programme implementation could fill important data gaps. At the project design stage, the paucity of climate finance data is a barrier to accessing climate finance  Although studies examining the association between climate and weather extremes, events and conditions and mobility in small islands have increased since AR5 , few studies robustly examine the attribution of migration of small island populations, communities and individuals to anthropogenic climate change and other non-climate migration drivers. Biophysical, socioeconomic and in situ adaptation thresholds that force small island populations to migrate remain under-explored . The implications of forced and voluntary immobility , the socioeconomic, health, psychological and cultural outcomes of climate migrants, and gender dimensions of climate migration all remain under-researched Limits to adaptation is still a largely under-researched topic globally  and specifically in small island contexts, as are the linkages between adaptation limits, loss and damage and transformative adaptation . In terms of projected risks and adaptation responses, further work is needed to improve knowledge of commonalities, differences, successes, and failures of natural and human adaptation responses . One of the failings of the current literature on limits to adaptation revolves largely around the use of barriers for sector-specific or small-scale scenarios, which provides an understanding only for that particular scenario and does not identify common constraints . Research gaps on loss and damage include: how to assess the economic costs of loss and damage; mechanisms to develop robust policies in small island contexts; specific data on experienced loss and damage across socioeconomic groups and demographics; monitoring and tracking of slow-onset events  and the non-economic aspects including sense of place, health and community cohesion  More studies are needed on the role that organisations  play in adaptation efforts-their effectiveness at achieving desired outcomes, roles and accountability . It is also important that the impacts of sociopolitical relations inter-state are researched  and more focus on climate justice  and gender is similarly needed . Given the high number of place-specific case studies in the adaptation literature, more reviews are needed that synthesise key lessons and principles of adaptations in small island contexts from this knowledge. Further research is also needed to capture the lessons from COVID-19 response in small islands and how these could enable more robust adaptation and climate resilient development transitions as has been suggested at a broader scale by Schipper et al. . There is also little to no information on impacts upon terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity from the relocation of coastal human populations inland due to SLR
IPCC
Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
IPCC Report