Interactive: How the world is already adapting to climate change

Design by Kerry Cleaver, Tom Pearson and Tom Prater

7 January 2025

People around the world are already living with the impacts of climate change. Faced with record-breaking heatwaves, storms and floods, many have been forced to adapt to a new reality.

Climate adaptation can take many forms. It could mean a farmer learning to grow drought-resistant crops, a community erecting a sea wall, or vulnerable families moving to a safer location away from floods.

The vast variety of these activities makes it challenging to build a complete picture of how prepared the world is for the growing threat of climate change.

In 2021, a large, international team of researchers published the most comprehensive assessment to date of the scientific literature on climate adaptation.

They analysed nearly 1,700 case studies of climate adaptation, revealing how people from the low-lying islands of Tuvalu to the mountains of Nepal are protecting themselves from climate hazards.

► Explore all of the studies in Carbon Brief’s interactive table.

Here, Carbon Brief has pulled out some of the key findings from the research, exploring some of the key trends and what they reveal about the global response to climate change.

Where is adaptation happening?

Adaptation projects are wide-ranging in both scope and geography. While many large-scale projects are planned and monitored by governments or businesses, others are implemented locally and informally by communities adapting to their changing climate. This means it has historically been tricky to assess the full scope of current adaptation efforts.

As the international community has grown to recognise adaptation as a crucial component of humanity’s response to the changing climate, the number of scientific studies on climate adaptation has surged.

The sheer volume of climate adaptation literature is becoming “unwieldy”, Dr Alexandra Lesnikowski – an assistant professor in geography planning and environment at Concordia University – tells Carbon Brief. Lesnikowski and hundreds of other experts set up the Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative (GAMI) to tackle this problem head on.

The global network of 126 researchers spent around two years using a combination of machine learning and manual coding to systematically screen peer-reviewed articles published over 2013-19 – in a range of languages – that mentioned climate change and adaptation.

The team initially identified more than 48,000 articles that mentioned climate change and adaptation. Of these, they found that 1,682 articles were about on-the-ground measures taken by communities to adapt to climate change. The other 95% of articles provided “conceptual or theoretical” discussions of climate adaptation, or plans for future adaptation measures.

In 2021, the experts published an analysis of the 1,682 articles on implemented adaptation measures. The locations of these measures are shown in the map below, where each green tile indicates a different academic article.

The study is “a very good reflection of what we know from scientific peer-reviewed literature”, Lesnikowski tells Carbon Brief. However, she notes that the project only looks at articles published in peer-reviewed journals, as it was “infeasible” to analyse all documentation on adaptation.

This means that not all documented climate adaptation measures are shown on the map.

“We use the scientific literature as a proxy for understanding what [adaptation] trends look like,” Lesnikowski explains. She says that this is an “essential component” for building the picture of global adaptation, but that it “needs to be complemented by other types of assessment”.

The analysis shows how the number of adaptation studies, and their focus, varies between world regions.

The graphics below show the number of adaptation papers from key regions. Hover over the green tiles for more study details. (Note that the order of the studies is random.)

► For a full list of papers from specific countries, use Carbon Brief’s interactive table.

The single country with the most documented adaptation projects is the US, which saw a total of 139 projects over 2013-19.

These include installing reflective “cool roofs” in California, improving resistance to coral bleaching in Hawaii and government programmes to support declining fishing communities in Alaska that are affected by rising temperatures.

US: 139/1,682 papers Hover over the green tiles for study details

Roughly one-third of the papers covered projects in Asia, particularly south Asia.

Among them were studies of drought-resistant crop planting in southern India, migration from flood-prone areas of Bangladesh and the response of community clinics to climate-related health problems in Vietnam.

Asia: 609/1,682 papers

A further one-third of papers detail adaptation responses in Africa – concentrated in southern and eastern Africa.

These include the expansion of rainwater collection in the Sahel, changes to the traditional farming practices of the Kenyan Maasai and local government interventions to avert floods in an informal settlement in Cape Town, South Africa.

Africa: 571/1,682 papers

The study also finds gaps in evidence of adaptation in many regions in the global south. For example, the Middle East and North Africa are home to around 6% of the world’s population, but only 3.5% of papers in this study assess them.

Middle East and north Africa: 39/1,682 papers

The study concludes that “documented adaptations were largely fragmented, local and incremental, with limited evidence of transformational adaptation and negligible evidence of risk reduction outcomes”.

The authors also note that as few studies attempted to measure whether adaptation efforts were effective or not, some of the responses may, in fact, be examples of “maladaptation”. This refers to adaptation projects that inadvertently leave those involved more vulnerable to climate change than they were to begin with.

Overall, they highlight future assessments of adaptation effectiveness – including everything from crop yields to health outcomes – as a “key priority” for researchers working in this field.

The work was a key source of information for the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and has sparked multiple follow-up studies.

What hazards are people adapting to?

The authors define each paper in the database according to the type of hazard it is responding to, for example sea level rise, extreme heat or drought. (A single paper can be assigned to multiple types of hazards.)

Almost 1,000 papers were classified under “general climate impacts” – meaning that no specific hazard was identified.

Changes in the water cycle – split into “drought”, “precipitation variability” and “extreme precipitation and inland flooding” – were the most pressing drivers of adaptation, the study finds. It concludes that more than half of the papers in the database were related to drought.

Meanwhile, “precipitation variability” was linked to more than 40% of the studies. The paper says that variability in drought and precipitation are “particularly important motivators of responses in Africa and Central and South America, for example, through the uptake of new forms of agriculture, food systems and the household-level water supply in cities”.

For example, it highlights projects in Bolivia, Guatemala and Kenya, where the threat of droughts and precipitation variability have led to changes in food systems.

Extreme precipitation and inland flooding” was a hazard in more than 40% of papers in the database, and was a particularly urgent driver of adaptation in small island nations.

Flooding and rising sea levels most commonly drive responses in small island states – “compelling people to prepare inland and coastal flood management infrastructure, implement new building codes and develop hazard maps and early warning systems”, the paper says.

In Africa and south Asia, most adaptation research is linked to rainfall extremes.

Almost 500 – 28% of articles – listed heat extremes as a hazard. And a similar number listed their hazard as “other”. These include a wide range of hazards such as pests and diseases on crops, wildfires, hurricanes, soil erosion and salinity intrusion.

Different regions also focus on different “sectors”. For example, research into “poverty and livelihood-related responses” was particularly prevalent in Africa, Asia and North America. Meanwhile, Europe and North America saw a particular focus on “cities, settlements and infrastructure”.

Charlotte Thege / Alamy Stock Photo.

“Many people have changed their occupation in response to the changing climate – for example from fishing to farming.” – Dr Adam Ceesay

Country	The Gambia
Time period	2010s
Hazard types	Drought
Response level	Individual or households

The Tanbi Wetland Complex is a national park in the Gambia, located at the mouth of the River Gambia estuary. This mangrove habitat serves as an important nursery ground for a range of fish species, shrimp and oysters, and was designated a Ramsar wetland of importance in 2007 due to its ecological richness.

Economic activities in this area are dominated by fisheries and tourism, while agricultural activities such as rice cultivation are also common. However, annual rainfall in the Gambia decreased by 30% over 1950-2000, driving noticeable changes in the wetland ecosystem.

Dr Adam Ceesay and her team used questionnaires to explore the experiences of communities engaged in the four major socioeconomic sectors in the wetland – fishing, agriculture, oyster collection and tourism. They found that 95% of the 132 interviewees believed that the ecosystem of wetland had changed over the past three decades. This included the disappearance of key fish species, mangrove degradation, soil erosion and a decline in the oyster stock. Most respondents told the researchers that they had seen a decline in their income over the past three decades.

Ceesay tells Carbon Brief that many people have changed their occupation in response to the changing climate – for example, from fishing to farming. Seasonal bans have also been implemented for certain resources, such as oysters.

In addition, she explains that a range of state-run adaptation projects have offered alternative livelihood sources – such as riverside garden projects for women groups, teaching oyster culture and launching trials and encouraging co-management of the wetlands together with women end users.

Ceesay tells Carbon Brief that “poor and vulnerable coastal communities” and women are particularly impacted by the changing ecosystem. She highlights the TRY Oyster women’s association, which now has “management rights” in the areas where they work.

The community-based group was founded in 2007, and aims to improve the lives of oyster harvesters. Before the group was founded, harvesters in Tanbi’s mangrove would hack off roots entirely, taking even small, unsaleable oysters.

However, through educational work, TRY members are encouraged to see themselves as stewards of the mangroves. They now leave roots intact, and even prevent others from chopping down the trees for firewood.

How are people adapting to climate impacts?

The authors went on to explore the different types of adaptation recorded in the database. (Note that a single paper can be assigned to multiple types of adaptation.)

Three-quarters of the responses documented in the academic literature globally are behavioural, the study finds, such as homeowners renovating their houses to protect against floods, fires and heat.

Many examples of behavioural change in the database concern farmers changing their agricultural practices. For example, farmers across China are responding to floods and drought by diversifying their crops, while smallholder farmers in Brazil are feeding their livestock more “balanced” diets to increase their milk production.

“Behavioural change” can also include more significant changes, such migration away from increasingly uninhabitable regions.

The majority of papers in this database detailed adaptation measures linked to “food, fibre and other ecosystem products”. The database shows the research related to food is largely concentrated near the equator, and lines up with the map of drought research.

Meanwhile, around two-thirds are also “technical or infrastructural”. These responses are particularly notable in the water sector of European cities, the paper says.

Finally, the authors find that more than 40% are “institutional”, involving “creating policies, programmes, regulations and procedures and establishing formal and informal organisations”.

These include social support groups, climate insurance services, capacity building and financial assistance programmes – are reported most frequently in the food and health sectors and in cities.

Who is driving adaptation?

Finally, the authors consider who is planning and financing climate adaptation. They find that the “vast majority” of adaptation is undertaken locally, with “individuals and households” driving 82% of adaptation responses – often in the context of food, health and poverty adaptation in Africa and Asia.

Often indigenous or traditional knowledge can help to inform climate adaptation.

However, institutions, local and national governments have also implemented adaptation measures.

Caribbean governments, for example, have "instituted education and capacity-building programmes”. The city of Bologna’s regional climate change adaptation plan includes an urban greening programme in Bologna. And transit agencies in the US have taken measures to adapt to extreme weather.

Meanwhile, an international, not-for-profit company has set up “genebanks” of traditional vegetables that have helped distribute tens of thousands of kits containing seed samples to smallholder farmers across eastern Africa to advance climate-resilient agriculture.

Moniruzzaman Sazal / Climate Visuals Countdown.

“Within minutes hectares and hectares of agricultural land went under floodwater, taking away with them all our hopes.” – Local impacted by the floods

Country	Bangladesh
Time period	2017
Hazard types	Extreme precipitation and inland flooding; Rainfall variability
Response level	Individual or households

Bangladesh is highly susceptible to the impacts of climate change, and nowhere is this more apparent than in its north-eastern wetlands. For centuries, communities have fished and grown rice in bowl-shaped floodplains known as “haors”, where they face the heaviest rainfall in the country and frequent flash flooding.

When floods struck Bangladesh in 2017, killing at least 145 people and affecting around 8 million, north-eastern Haor communities were on the front line. Dr Mohammad Shamsudduha, an associate professor in humanitarian science at University College London, led a study that assessed the aftermath of this event in the Sunamganj district.

Interviews with locals and household surveys revealed that around 88% of people in the area had suffered economic losses. The floodwaters wiped out around $450m worth of high-yielding “boro” rice, resulting in food shortages and sending prices soaring. Water-borne diseases spread and livestock died after eating rotten food.

The researchers noted that wealthier people were reluctant to accept flood relief from the government, instead opting for loans that they subsequently struggled to pay back. One local told the team:

“Within minutes hectares and hectares of agricultural land went under floodwater, taking away with them all our hopes.”

Despite the prevalence of flooding in the region, the study found only around one-third of people were actively preparing for future events by strengthening their homes or setting aside money.

“Many people are stuck in that cycle of flood and then rebuild,” says Shamsudduha. “There isn’t any kind of big push either by the government or the local community to make them really resilient to flash floods, because it’s difficult.”

The study concludes that some of this hesitance is “deep-rooted in a strong religious belief that floods…are from God and, therefore, cannot be avoided”. It also notes that women are more vulnerable to flooding, as they are not able to work outside the home in deeply religious haor communities.

For his part, Ahmed Ziaur Rahman, a senior administrator within the Bangladesh government who is conducting research with Shamsudduha, tells Carbon Brief about some of the broader adaptation measures taking place. These include government-backed embankment construction and experiments with hybrid rice strains that can be harvested earlier in the season, before the flood waters come.

How is adaptation being addressed in UN climate talks?

The need to monitor and support climate adaptation has emerged as a key goal of international climate negotiations.

Early global efforts to tackle climate change mainly focused on cutting emissions. But as the dangers of a warming world became increasingly apparent, there was growing pressure from developing countries to give adaptation equal prominence in UN talks.

The African Group of Negotiators, representing a region that is particularly vulnerable to climate change, was the first to lay out a plan for a “global goal on adaptation” in 2013. Their allies in the Independent Association of Latin America and the Caribbean (AILAC) also backed the concept, stating that it should have “a collective aim of ensuring a resilient planet”.

— AGN (2013)

These ideas came to a head in 2015, when elements of these developing country proposals made their way into a distinct article of the Paris Agreement. Countries were tasked with working out a global goal on adaptation that would later be assessed alongside other climate targets when countries conduct the first “global stocktake” of climate progress in 2023.

— Paris Agreement (2015)

The stocktake drew in information not only from scientific studies, but also thousands of pages of adaptation reporting submitted by governments, civil society groups and businesses.

According to the resulting synthesis report, collectively these documents showed that “most observed adaptation efforts are fragmented, incremental, sector-specific and unequally distributed across regions”.

However, as 2023 arrived, the global goal – which theoretically could help to address these issues – was still only vaguely defined.

Measuring emissions cuts is relatively straightforward and easy to compare across countries, whereas adaptation varies enormously depending on context. Adaptation progress could mean something completely different in a landlocked African country compared to a remote island in the Pacific ocean.

As a result, the global goal has been subject to persistent unanswered questions since it was first proposed. These include what the goal should cover, how to measure it and how to report on progress. Meanwhile, around the world adaptation activities have often been under-recognised and underfunded.

Many nations in the global south are among the most vulnerable to climate change, but struggle to invest sufficiently in adaptation. Developing-country governments have long argued for more support from developed countries in funding adaptation-related projects.

Such support has increased in recent years. However, the UN Environment Programme estimates that adaptation finance from the public funds of developed countries is $187-359bn short each year of what developing countries need.

At COP28 in Dubai, negotiators adopted a “framework” that nations could use to guide their adaptation activities. They also agreed a “work programme” to move towards a political consensus on what the global goal covers and the indicators that will be used to measure it.

They settled on various targets for assessing progress and a number of specific adaptation themes, including water, food, health, ecosystems, infrastructure, poverty eradication and cultural heritage.

However, finance disputes have continued, with developing countries seeking stronger commitments from developed countries to provide more money for adaptation. This was still the case at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Adaptation data set

Explore all 1,682 adaptation papers in Carbon Brief’s interactive table below.

Use the dropdown boxes to filter the papers by country or hazard. Type in the “search” box to find adaptation papers about specific topics.

Search papers:

Rows: 1 to 10 of 1682 papers

title	location	hazard
A review on extreme weather events and livelihood in Odisha, India	India	Drought, Extreme precipitation and inland flooding, Increased frequency and intensity of extreme heat, Other, No information or not assessed
Are preventive and coping measures enough to avoid loss and damage from flooding in Udayapur district, Nepal?	Nepal	Extreme precipitation and inland flooding, General climate impacts, Other
Maple Syrup Producers of the Lake States, USA: Attitudes Towards and Adaptation to Social, Ecological, and Climate Conditions	United States	General climate impacts, Other
How are we adapting to climate change? A global assessment		General climate impacts, Increased frequency and intensity of extreme heat, Extreme precipitation and inland flooding, Drought, Other
Climate change and world heritage: a cross-border analysis of the Sundarbans (Bangladesh-India)	India, Bangladesh	General climate impacts
Socio-economic and ecological dimensions of climate variability and change for agro-pastoral communities in central Tanzania	Tanzania	Increased frequency and intensity of extreme heat, Precipitation variability, Other, Drought
United States agricultural stakeholder views and decisions on climate change	United States	Extreme precipitation and inland flooding, General climate impacts, Precipitation variability, Drought, Other
Sustainability of transhumance grazing systems under socio-economic threats in Langtang, Nepal	Nepal	Increased frequency and intensity of extreme heat, Precipitation variability, Extreme precipitation and inland flooding, General climate impacts
Assessing local climate vulnerability and winegrowers' adaptive processes in the context of climate change	France	Precipitation variability, Increased frequency and intensity of extreme heat
Farmers' perceptions of and adaptation strategies to climate change and their determinants: the case of Punjab province, Pakistan	Pakistan	Increased frequency and intensity of extreme heat, Drought, Extreme precipitation and inland flooding, Other, Precipitation variability

Download the full data set (.tsv)

Hero image credits: Scottish Government; Jake Lyell / Alamy Stock Photo; Kadir van Lohuizen / NOOR; Avijit Ghosh / Climate Visuals; Forest Service, USDA.