Adaptation practitioners often need to quantify costs, benefits, and avoided losses to inform their decisions on adaptation strategies. The study “Economic Approaches for Assessing Cimate Change Adaptation Options”, commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), presents two economic methods which can be used in assessing vulnerability as well as selecting adaptation measures: a basic cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and a more sophisticated Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA). It has now been updated to cover the controversial issue of discounting more thoroughly.
Like before, two Excel tools for applying CBA and MCA are provided. Both approaches have been piloted by AdaptationCommunity.net’s partners in Mexico (Method Briefs on CBA and MCA are available on the website). And for yet another different take on quantifying the costs and benefits of CCA options, see the “Saved Health, Saved Wealth” approach which aims to avoid the problem of monetarising human life.
