Evidence gap and interventions heat maps of climate change adaptations in low- and middle income countries

In the face of the predicted and actual severity of climate change, there has been considerable interest in understanding what does and does not work to increase the ability of human and environmental systems to adapt to changing climate. This paper presents an evidence gap map and examines evidence on adaptation between 2007 and 2018. We analyse evidence related to the effectiveness of adaptation measures. The evidence gap map is derived from systematically and exhaustively reviewing adaptation-related high-quality evidence from evaluation and research in developing countries, from both peer-reviewed and grey literature. The resulting literature was mapped onto a conceptual framework that included the type of intervention, the sector of activity and types of outcome measured. We examined 464 papers in detail. The results show that there is a large share of adaptation-related evidence on agriculture, and within it on the economic returns of technological and nature-based solutions. The main evidence gaps include a scarcity of evidence on adaptation interventions in the water sector, and on measures aimed at reducing exposure to climate events. We also note there is a scarcity of studies that examine social and institutional outcomes of climate change adaptation interventions. Not surprisingly, there are few studies that use experimental designs. Most studies use quasi-experimental designs and multivariate analyses.