IMPACTS: An Information Tool for Citizens to Assess Impacts of Climate Changge from a Regional Perspective

The advantages offered by Participatory Integrated Assessment techniques are described, including benefitting the application of analytical techniques such as IA-modeling due to their explicit inclusions of stakeholders and decision-makers in the overall assessment. Researchers developed a new paradigm for providing expert knowledge for participatory integrated regional assessments of regional climate change. The proposed paradigm, called Interactive Citizen's Information Tools (ICITs), provide users with expert knowledge concerning the potential causes of climate change, potential impacts, and policy options for coping with anthropogenic aspects of on-going climate change. The development and implementation of IMPACTS, an ICIT system, in IA-focus groups in Switzerland are detailed.