Systemic Risk Governance for Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation

Systemic risks, marked by cascading, interconnected effects across ecological, social, and economic domains, pose unprecedented challenges for climate change adaptation and disaster risk management. Climate change acts as a risk multiplier, intensifying the complexity, uncertainty, and transboundary nature of these risks. This chapter explores how systemic risk governance must evolve to confront these challenges, emphasising the need for integrated, anticipatory, and ethically grounded approaches. Drawing on systems thinking, systemic risks are conceptualised as emergent phenomena driven by feedback loops, interdependencies, and tipping points. It is argued that governance should be grounded in reflection, iteration, and deliberation to ensure evidence-based risk analysis, fair decision-making processes, and equitable outcomes. Ethical considerations are central, as risk governance decisions are value-laden and context-dependent. The Horizon Europe project DIRECTED serves as an exemplar, demonstrating how innovations can enhance resilience, bridge local and systemic perspectives, and support continuous learning in risk governance.