Solutions for adapting to climate change in mountains: an exchange of lessons learned and ways forwards

Summary

The Adaptation at Altitude (A@A) Knowledge Network convened its first in-person session at the International Mountain Conference in Innsbruck on the 17 September 2025. The session was hosted by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and University of Geneva (UNIGE) under the Adaptation at Altitude programme, supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The session gathered 40 participants to exchange lessons learned on, and ways forwards for climate change adaptation ‘solutions’ in mountain regions.

The A@A Knowledge Network session opened with an introductory presentation by Rosie Witton and Kate Williamson (SEI) titled ‘Adaptation at Altitude: How can we exchange knowledge and share lessons of adaptation solutions in mountains’. This showcased the:

• Adaptation at Altitude Solutions Portal – a global database of tried-and-tested adaptation solutions in mountain regions, that can be scaled and replicated elsewhere.
• weADAPT ‘climate change adaptation in mountains’ theme – an online space for those working on climate change adaptation in mountains to share their reports, papers, case studies, and more.
• Adaptation at Altitude Knowledge Network – a global community through which those working on or interested in adaptation in mountain regions can share experiences and knowledge, and collaborate to accelerate the uptake of innovative solutions.

The session then welcomed speakers to share their work and insights on climate change adaptation solutions in mountains in a series of short presentations:

• Carla Marchant (Universidad Austral de Chile) – Socio-ecological vulnerability and adaptive capacity of small-scale agriculture to Global Environmental Change in Important Agricultural Heritage Systems in southern Chile. Learn about the adaptive capacity of small-scale agriculture to current variability and future climate change in southern Chile, and explore the contribution of local knowledge as a tool that may allow feasible and efficient adaptation strategies to the impacts of these phenomena.
• Annemarie Polderman (Austrian Academy of Sciences) – Local Adaptation Readiness for effective Climate Risk Management. Based on the CAUTION project, funded by the Austrian Climate Research Programme, this contribution highlights the need to adapt climate risk management (CRM) strategies, policies, and initiatives from the international or national level to the regional and local contexts, where they are actually implemented and where tangible changes can occur. A comprehensive understanding of the local multi-risk situation, including how it is embedded in governance structures, is therefore crucial for the effective implementation of CRM and subsequently for enhancing the resilience of mountain communities.
• Christine Jurt (Bern University of Applied Sciences) – The flux of climate information in mountain regions: an example from the Andes. Through the projects ENANDES and ENANDES+ , this contribution examines the flow of climate information in different contexts across the Andes and assesses how socio-political-economic aspects might lead to different cooperation possibilities and user responses. Knowing the potentials and limitations of the flow could allow can contribute to the adaptation of the service and the configuration of the User Interface Platform to the local conditions.
• Stefano Sala (UNIMONT) – MountResilience: Testing innovative frameworks for climate change adaptation practices at a regional scale. Learn about the work being undertaken in the MountResilience project, funded by Horizon Europe, to enhance the adaptive capacity of local communities through a multi-level stakeholder engagement process that integrates local knowledge with scientific expertise. This includes reconstructing impact chains (ICs) to assess risk and vulnerability; adapting existing European engagement frameworks, such as the Regional Adaptation Support Tool (RAST) and the TransformAr playbook, to align with local expertise; and creating a Solution Database to facilitate the understanding of climate change and accelerate decision-making and solution adoption in mountain areas.
• Luis Daniel Llambi (CONDESAN) – Adaptation solutions and climate resilience: a comparative analysis across the Andes. Explore the current state of adaptation solutions in the Andes, through a comparative analysis of 40 measures implemented along the range in a wide diversity of socio-environmental contexts, from the humid páramos of the northern Andes to the dry punas of the altiplano. See how solutions often share features such as significant community participation, but may differ in terms of the duration and depth of adaptation processes in the territory, their articulation with national programs and policies, or the effective use of monitoring and evaluation strategies for their environmental and social impacts.
• Julia Josselyn Aguilera Rodriguez  (UNIGE) – Assessing climate adaptation solutions in the Andes: Perspectives from beneficiary communities on effectiveness and sustainability. Learn about the results of an assessment of the effectiveness and sustainability of five climate change adaptation solutions implemented across five different countries in the Andean Cordillera, as part of the Adaptation at Altitude programme. The study identifies best practices, extracts lessons learned and analyses key factors, both facilitating and constraining, that influence the effectiveness, sustainability and scalability of these solutions to strengthen climate change adaptation efforts in mountain regions, both in the Andes and beyond.
• Ansgar Fellendorf (UNEP) – Mountains ADAPT: learnings from piloting a small grants scheme in mountain communities. Explore learnings and findings from the first pilot phase of the Mountains Adapt project in the South Caucasus and East African Community. This includes a substantive stock-take and analysis of existing small grant schemes and grants programs; analysis focusing on more than 30 financing schemes, and recommendations for concrete next steps towards developing a mountain community small grants scheme for adaptation.

The presentations can be downloaded from the right-hand column. Please access the original text for more detail, research purposes, full references, or to quote text. 

Exchange of enablers, barriers, and gaps and opportunities

Following the presentations, participants broke out into three discussion groups to exchange knowledge on enablers, barriers, and gaps and opportunities.

Enablers

What enables ‘success’ in adaptation solutions and projects? What makes them effective and transferrable to other regions?

Various critical enablers were identified as having the potential to enhance the effectiveness, sustainability, and transferability of climate adaptation projects in mountain regions.

Foremost among these is the establishment of trust among all relevant stakeholders and community groups, which provides a foundation for long-term collaboration. Equally important is the early and meaningful engagement of communities, ensuring that projects are grounded in local knowledge, priorities, and realities. Fostering community ownership is a key factor, given that agreements to encourage local responsibility increase the likelihood of project benefits persisting after external support ends. Participants further emphasised the value of developing educational materials and tools tailored to local languages and culturally appropriate formats, building local capacities while ensuring practical usability and lasting impact, as well as a foundation that facilitates future interventions.

Importantly, adaptation was recognised as a long-term process requiring sustained, coordinated effort. Achieving meaningful and durable outcomes depends on a thorough understanding of local power dynamics and the deliberate cultivation of relationships and capacities (including at the community level).

Barriers

What are the main threats and challenges you face in your adaptation solutions and projects?

Discussions on barriers to adaptation solutions and projects focused on funding, engagement and collaboration, measuring success, co-production, and capacity development.

Coordination and collaboration between projects, organisations at different levels (e.g. local, national, regional), and between researchers and local communities were all mentioned as challenges. Building collaboration and coordination between these groups was understood to be of importance and a key interest. Foremost, participants discussed the interest to engage key target audiences in projects, with a focus on capacity development and co-designing or co-creating activities. However, participants reflected there are challenges with limited capacity, time, and funding available.

Monitoring and evaluating the “success” of a project or solution was also discussed as a challenge. It was acknowledged and discussed that some projects have undertaken monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) during the lifetime of the project but this typically finishes upon project completion. Therefore, this challenge particularly affects projects or solutions where the impact is realised over longer timeframes, beyond project funding.

Gaps and opportunities

How can we harness opportunities and work together to address gaps in adaptation solutions and projects?

As with the discussion on barriers, participants identified MEL as a key knowledge gap, and emphasised the need for more in-depth MEL of adaptation solutions that go beyond project lifetimes to better understand impacts – particularly those less tangible e.g. social. It was also noted that there are few examples to learn from, and that the ongoing assessments being conducted under the Adaptation at Altitude programme will serve as useful inspiration and guidance.

Coordination and collaboration between different municipalities and among local, regional, and national actors for adaptation in mountains was also identified as a knowledge gap. Participants discussed the beneficial role of intermediary actors in bridging actors across different governance levels, as well as the need for greater knowledge exchange and ownership of solutions at different levels.

Lastly, participants discussed the need for more implementation at the sub-national level but recognised that this is often hampered by their lack of resource and capacity. Training was mentioned as a possible opportunity to support and provide guidance to local actors on how to better access finance for adaptation at the local level.

Overall, the session demonstrated the importance of identifying and sharing good practice and lessons learned among stakeholders working on climate change adaptation in mountains. Facilitating discussions (both in-person and online) can support new partnerships and help showcase existing adaptation strategies, and accelerate their uptake and scaling elsewhere.

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