Climate Change Impact and Vulnerability Assessment. Experiences from Target Areas.

In the seven BalticClimate Target Areas of Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia and Sweden a spectrum of actors of key institutions and authorities (e.g. members of government at municipality, county and national level, county administrative boards, regional planning and development associations, research institutes and environmental centres) participated in a number of exercises making up the vulnerability assessment on climate change focussing on the sectors of agriculture, energy, housing and transport. These exercises were later revised and incorporated into the BalticClimate Toolkit for wider distribution in eleven Baltic Sea Region countries. The vulnerability assessment is based on a participatory approach in order to study factors that limit or facilitate local ability to manage climate through mitigation and adaptation strategies. Seven local/regional level assessments were conducted in the Target Areas supported by similar material and guidelines and previous introduction by an external scientific team.