Enhancing the relevance of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways for climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability research

Ruijven, Bas J. van; Levy, Marc A.; Agrawal, Arun; Biermann, Frank; Birkmann, Joern; Carter, Timothy R.; Ebi, Kristie L.; Garschagen, Matthias ; Jones, Bryan; Jones, Roger; Kemp-Benedict, Eric; Kok, Marcel; Kok, Kasper; Lemos, Maria Carmen; Lucas, Paul L.; Orlove, Ben; Pachauri, Shonali; Parris, Tom M.; Patwardhan, Anand; Petersen, Arthur; Preston, Benjamin L.; Ribot, Jesse; Rothman, Dale S. and Schweizer, Vanessa J. (February 2014): Enhancing the relevance of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways for climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability research. In: Climatic Change, Vol. 122, No. 3: pp. 481-494

Abstract

This paper discusses the role and relevance of the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) and the new scenarios that combine SSPs with representative concentration pathways (RCPs) for climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability (IAV) research. It first provides an overview of uses of social-environmental scenarios in IAV studies and identifies the main shortcomings of earlier such scenarios. Second, the paper elaborates on two aspects of the SSPs and new scenarios that would improve their usefulness for IAV studies compared to earlier scenario sets: (i) enhancing their applicability while retaining coherence across spatial scales, and (ii) adding indicators of importance for projecting vulnerability. The paper therefore presents an agenda for future research, recommending that SSPs incorporate not only the standard variables of population and gross domestic product, but also indicators such as income distribution, spatial population, human health and governance.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Geosciences > Department of Geography > Human-Environment Relations
• Subjects: 900 History and geography > 910 Geography and travel
• ISSN: 0165-0009
• Place of Publication: VAN GODEWIJCKSTRAAT 30, 3311 GZ DORDRECHT, NETHERLANDS
• Language: English