Introducing the beta version of ISIpedia, the open climate-impacts encyclopaedia

Despite the existing ample amount of scientific knowledge on the impacts of climate change, this information is often not conveyed in a way that is relevant and useful to decision makers. If designed correctly, climate services can bridge the gap between the knowledge providers and users. The ISIpedia project aims at developing an online encyclopedia  that provides policy-relevant, user-driven climate impact information based on the data and scientific knowledge generated by the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Inter-comparison Project (ISIMIP,) community. In order to ensure that the information provided is accessible and understandable, ISIpedia has facilitated a dialogue between modellers and stakeholders through a number of stakeholder engagement activities.

 

The ISIpedia portal will deliver national- and global- level assessments of impacts of climate change across different sectors to the identified end-users that range from climate adaptation planners (e.g. involved in National Adaptation Plans) and practitioners, regional knowledge hubs, trans- and interdisciplinary scientists to regional climate experts from the private and public sectors. The portal is also characterised by an intuitive and user-friendly interface for better dissemination and application of this knowledge.

 

Through an interactive exploration of the ISIpedia portal, during this session we will not only introduce the beta version of ISIpedia but also discuss in detail how our stakeholder engagement processes have shaped the portal’s current functionalities and its design. More specifically, the audience will get a chance to create country-specific climate impact assessments and test the legibility of the content, which includes interactive graphs and maps as well as method descriptions. We will also explore how different inter-sectoral indicators, some of which were derived from our workshops in Eastern Europe (Poland, November 2018) and West Africa (Burkina Faso, February 2019), can be applied to managing climate risks, vulnerabilities and planning adaptation and/or larger political contexts, such as the Sustainable Development Goals or Disaster Risk Reduction and what new indicators can be developed. Additionally, we will present other functional and design features, such as the glossary, data download functions and news, that we identified as added values to the portal during diverse stakeholder engagement activities.

 

The inputs gathered from the EGU conference, along with the ones from the planned feedback workshops in Southeast Asia (April 2020), Eastern Europe (June 2020) and West Africa (October 2020), will be taken into account for further improvement of the portal until its final release in the fall of 2020. Furthermore, a reflection on the successes and challenges of our co-development process will be shared.