Insights
Getting climate risk assessments right: A practical guide
Posted September 29, 2025
As climate risks intensify, governments are turning to climate risk assessments to help communities prepare, adapt, and build resilience.
If you’re about to embark on one, this guide offers practical insights drawn from our experience delivering assessments across Australia. It’s designed to help you start strong and align with best practice from the outset, based on key insights we’ve found along the way.
Why do a climate risk assessment?
A climate risk assessment (CRA) helps us gain a clear understanding of the intermediate and long-term risks and the measures needed to mitigate and adapt to them. Like any strategy, it’s a tool that makes sense of both the physical impacts of climate change, such as sea level risk and heatwaves, and the less obvious, such as traditional risks tied to policy, regulation, and the shift to a low-carbon economy.
The process is relatively simple. Understand where your assets, services, and communities are exposed to risk and use that information to inform better decision-making. Done well, a CRA can become the first step in helping to prioritise action, make an investment case, and support the people and places most at risk.
What’s included in a climate risk assessment?
While there is no one-size-fits-all approach, a good CRA covers a broad range of risks, including infrastructure, natural systems, community wellbeing, governance, and the local economy. Assessments need to reflect what’s happening spatially and consider both current and future climate conditions.
This means going beyond identifying hazards to ask who is most affected, such as renters, older residents, or people already experiencing disadvantage. The best assessments combine data and local knowledge derived from engagement and collaboration. It’s also important to consider whether the CRA is for government as an organisation, or if it also covers the wider community. Your approach should be aligned with international and interstate risk management processes and frameworks, including:
- ISO 14090:2019 Adaptation to climate change – Principles, requirements and guidelines; and ISO 14091:2021 Adaptation to climate change – Guidelines on vulnerability, impacts and risk assessment
- AS 5334:2013 Climate change adaptation for settlements and infrastructure – A risk-based approach
- Climate Risk Ready NSW
- Australia’s National Climate Risk Assessment
Many of these assessments include risk ratings to help understand the degree of change, as shown in the example below. The domains are sources across the following areas: built, social, natural and economic.
How are they used?
CRAs don’t sit on a shelf. They directly inform government plans, policies, and budgets at all levels. That might involve greening urban areas, redesigning stormwater systems, or incorporating climate criteria into planning decisions. They are also a powerful advocacy tool, helping to make the case for funding or partnerships. But it only works if it’s connected to real decision-making. This involves breaking down silos and collaborating closely with community organisations, researchers, and other partners to translate findings into action.
Best practice examples
Through our work across diverse contexts in Tasmania and beyond, we’ve seen that while there’s no standard approach to CRAs, a few key practices consistently lead to stronger outcomes.
In Hobart, the Climate Risk and Vulnerability Assessment combined in-depth data analysis with meaningful community engagement to ensure identified risks reflected local realities. We also partnered with AECOM and the ACT Government to develop a whole-of-government Climate Change Risk Assessment, bringing strategic alignment to climate planning across all agencies.
Working with Brighton Council, we assessed climate hazards along the Derwent River foreshore, taking into account both infrastructure and natural values, as well as Aboriginal heritage. This led to a set of adaptation options tested through cost-benefit analysis and supported by community input.
In coastal towns such as Lauderdale, Kingston Beach, and Somerset, we assisted councils in applying a structured 15-step adaptation process, focusing on single hazards, to guide decisions about when to protect, when to retreat, and how to weigh the trade-offs.
Each assessment was technically robust, but what made them effective was clear structure and strong local engagement. With the right foundations, councils can move from identifying risks to delivering implementable, community-backed action.
Key practices for success
- Define what you’re trying to achieve. From the beginning, the City of Hobart’s report aimed to address two audiences: Council as an organisation (corporate risks) and the broader community (municipal risks). This means Council has a duty of care to its workers and the general public. Other studies focus on starting with a rapid, qualitative risk assessment and building on it iteratively, especially when you’re unsure of the full scope from the outset.
- Consider a broad range of risks. Don’t limit your assessment to obvious hazards, such as flooding or bushfires. In the City of Hobart, risks were grouped into seven domains, covering everything from the natural environment to governance. This included “transitional” risks associated with the shift to net zero, as well as “overarching” or “complex” risks, such as cascading and compounding effects of climate impacts. These could include rising distrust in government, misinformation, worsening mental health, or increasing financial inequality. While these may not pose immediate threats, they can amplify the risks already identified in other domains. This is especially true in contexts where multiple risks occur simultaneously or in combination.
- Engage to involve. Government does not operate in a vacuum. In all assessments, our team worked with relevant staff, community representatives, and researchers. Engagement includes focused workshops where key problems, risks, and solutions are identified and agreed upon, ensuring they’re intentional and not merely tick-box. They also help to shape priorities and clarify the language used in risk statements. For example, in the Tasmanian Coastal Adaptation Pathways (TCAP) projects, the scenarios were tested with the community, using plain language and local context to unpack the implications of each pathway, including who benefits, who pays, and the trade-offs involved. This structured approach helped to build consensus on a preferred adaptation pathway. In Hobart, focused workshops were held with various stakeholders to help build the language of the mitigation and adaptation measures.
- It’s best to plan for the worst-case. Scenario RCP8.5 is the highest baseline future greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions scenario. It is generally referred to as the basis for the ‘worst case’ climate change scenarios based on current policies and practices. In this case, it’s better to be pessimistic and reflect risks that are already taking place across the state. When it comes to protecting key services, infrastructure, and lives, you’re best to plan accordingly.
- Get spatial or get loud. While a rapid climate assessment can rely on qualitative insights, it’s key to gather as much spatial data as possible. Tasmania has access to leading insights and spatial databases, including coastal hazard bands, but there is a patchwork of other data sources. Gathering primary-source data is costly and time-consuming, particularly for cash-strapped local governments. Councils should advocate to the state government for more effective mapping of assets and exposure to hazards. Without this, we will be left guessing in our assessments.
- Physical risks are just the beginning. Risks were ranked and prioritised to the top 10 considerations for government. Among these were risks such as employee mental health and its impact on rates. Without a framework, it is unlikely that the mitigation measures proposed would receive exposure. Your identified risks may surprise you.
- Not everyone is impacted equally. Most people who read about climate change understand that those with the fewest resources will be the most affected. Vulnerable groups like older people, those with preexisting health conditions, or those experiencing homelessness, will be disproportionately impacted by extreme heat or flooding events. Your assessment must consider this through the lens of equity.
- Money talks. Unfortunately, many people are not awake to the immediate concerns associated with climate change. You don’t want your plan to gather dust on a shelf; it should inspire action. The cost of inaction is too high, from uninsurable assets to rising insurance costs and increasing pressure on council rates. There should be a direct line to financial planning and advocacy. Where possible, quantify the risks of inaction.
A CRA goes beyond the theoretical and technical; they are a document owned by government and the communities it serves. Often, they are the first necessary step needed to build resilience and future-proof your organisation. Government needs to ensure clarity, cover a range of risks, and involve a variety of stakeholders. Using the best practice assessment as a demonstration, Councils should use the document as a tool to inform planning, advocacy, and budgeting.
A CRA is more than just a technical exercise; it’s a practical tool, owned by both government and the communities it serves. Often, it’s the critical first step toward building resilience and future-proofing an organisation.
To be effective, a CRA must communicate risks, consider a wide range of hazards, and involve diverse stakeholders. When done well, it becomes a valuable resource for planning, advocacy, and budgeting. Government should treat the CRA as a living document—one that guides decisions and supports long-term, community-informed action.
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