Clever Councils: the Climate Adaptation decision support Tool for Local Governments (CATLog) — ASN Events

Clever Councils: the Climate Adaptation decision support Tool for Local Governments (CATLog) (7140)

Ann Henderson-Sellers 1 , Supriya Mathew 1 , Stefan Trueck 1 , Ros Taplin 2 , Tim Keighley 1 , Woonchoo Chin 1
  1. Macquarie Univeristy, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  2. University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Communities adapt by ‘action learning’ and, especially, by building on success and ensuring transparency and involvement. This paper showcases a MS ExcelTM based Tool (CATLog: Climate Adaptation decision support Tool for Local Governments) that assists adaptation decision-making at local government levels. The Tool has already delivered success and learning to a wide variety of Australian Councils. It has been demonstrated in Southern India and taken up by the UN as a ‘success story’. CATLog supports adaptation to extreme climatic events recognising that occurrence and damage due to extreme events are subject to a wide range of uncertainties. Despite the acknowledged uncertainty, it is vital to adapt to the damage due to localised extreme events. The CATLog Tool thus concentrates on adaptation decision-making for extreme events by combining a quantitative evaluation method such as Cost-Benefit Analysis and a qualitative evaluation method such as Multi-Criteria Analysis to evaluate adaptation options. Economic as well as qualitative evaluation is required for a complete evaluation as damage due to extreme events and benefits due to potential adaptation options are not just limited to economic units. Uncertainty due to climate change (e.g. frequency/severity of extremes under changing climate) and uncertain parameter values affecting the future (e,g. discount rate, growth rate) are examined with the help of sensitivity tests. The Tool output is shown in the form of MS ExcelTM tables (e.g. total damage due to an extreme) as well as charts (e.g. sensitivity of results to unsure parameters) to help local government users make appropriate decisions. Delivery to local government officers around Australia indicates that it is possible to adapt to extreme events, taking into account non-climate related priorities of a location/sector as well, to obtain options which have benefits in all futures. Further, uncertainty in the value of parameters such as discount rate, growth rate, frequency/severity of events may be examined with sensitivity tests. This paper will present CATLog and explain the decision-making method followed in its development in terms of adaptation to heatwaves and floods.