This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Climate change adaptation requires rapid, informed decision-making. Yet the knowledge needed to make those decisions is often hard to find, scattered across online platforms and described using inconsistent terminology.
A new release of the Climate Connectivity Taxonomy (CC Taxonomy), developed with support from the EU-funded FAIR2Adapt project, marks a significant step toward solving this problem. Climate knowledge is growing rapidly, but so is the challenge of navigating it. Researchers, practitioners and policymakers working on climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction often use different terms for closely related concepts.
An adaptation practitioner might focus on "adaptive capacity," while a disaster risk specialist might talk about "coping capacity" or "preparedness." These terms are related but not interchangeable, reflecting different perspectives, values, disciplines, timescales and ways of understanding risk. The CC Taxonomy makes these relationships visible. Rather than forcing diverse terminology into a single vocabulary, it maps connections between terms while preserving their distinct meanings.
This helps users discover relevant knowledge that might otherwise be overlooked across disciplinary boundaries. The CC Taxonomy is an AI- and human-curated collection of terms related to climate change and disaster risk. It powers the Climate Connectivity Hub—an online search and discovery tool that aggregates knowledge from platforms including weADAPT, CORDIS, PreventionWeb, Climate-ADAPT and the Resilience Platform—making it easier for researchers, practitioners and policymakers to find, connect and build on existing work.
It also powers an interactive glossary on the weADAPT global platform for adaptation, where hovering over a highlighted term shows the user the definition of the concept. This could be useful for other platforms and could increase interoperability between platforms. A dynamic listing of the taxonomy terms is also available.
"We don't lack knowledge on climate adaptation. We struggle to connect it. In FAIR2Adapt, we are working to bridge these gaps across disciplines, communities and platforms.
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