Global warming, driven by the rising of Greenhouse Gas in the Earth’s atmosphere, is now a highly concerned issue as it could cause many changes at the global scale which may threaten many ecosystems and livelihood of many sectors. One of the most important changes, which are induced by global warming, is the climate change. Climate change, which is driven by global warming, is a long-term shift or alteration in the climate of a specific location or regional or globally. Change in climate pattern may include change in temperature, wind pattern, precipitation as well as change in frequency and magnitude of climate variability, particularly the extreme climate event. The impact of climate change may have many consequences on the bio-physical system as well as human wellbeing.

       Climate change would cause many consequence impacts to the bio-physical systems as well as wellbeing of the people in many sectors, especially those in the developing country where high number of population are in agricultural sector and highly depend on the climate with limited choice or adaptive capacity to cope with the anomaly in climate pattern due to their economic condition. The impact of climate change may be different form system to system, from sector to sector and from site to site. Understanding or knowledge on how climate change may cause impacts at local scale is crucial for long term adaptation plan that would minimize the impact or to better manage future risk from climate change.

       Southeast START Regional Center has been conducting the study in Southeast Asia region on climate change impact, vulnerability and adaptation since 1997 with main objectives to get basic understanding on climate change at the regional scale and also to develop research capacity as well as research network in the region to study climate change impact, vulnerability and adaptation. In addition, the goal of the climate change study at SEA START RC is also to develop, modify and test various tools and methodologies for the study in this subject.

Research network – research partners (partial):

• Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
• Chiang Mai University, Thailand
• Mahidol University, Thailand
• Khon Kaen University, Thailand
• Ubonratchathani University, Thailand
• Meteorological Department, Ministry of Science, Thailand
• Department of Agriculture, Ministry of Agriculture, Thailand
• Land Development Department, Ministry of Agriculture, Thailand
• National University of Laos, Lao PDR
• National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute, Ministry of Agriculture, Lao PDR
• Environmental Research Institute, Science Technology and Environment Agency, Lao PDR
• Water Resource Coordinating Committee, Office of the Prime Minister, Lao PDR
• National University of Malaysia, Malaysia
• Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology and Environment, Vietnam
• Sub-institute of Hydrometeorology of South Vietnam, Vietnam
• Can Tho University, Vietnam
• University Technology Helsinki (TKK), Finland
• The Met Office Hadley Centre, UK