Risk and Resilience
The Risk and Resilience Program addresses social-ecological risks characterized by cascading and existential consequences. Researchers identify drivers, assess probabilistic outcomes, propose stakeholder-driven policy options in the face of heterogeneous values, and support necessary resilience transformations and the design of governance regimes for their resolution.
Selected highlights
Climate change threatens global breadbaskets
Extreme climatic conditions are responsible for at least 30% of the annual fluctuations in worldwide agricultural yield. An innovative IIASA modelling study showed that extreme temperatures could lead to unusually low harvests if more than one of the world’s breadbaskets are affected at the same time.
Exploring new avenues for managing shared resources
The sustainable use of common resources is one of the major challenges facing humanity. An IIASA study for the first time combined experimental gaming with cultural theory to shed light on the mechanisms that govern human-environment interactions.