Climate change is an urgent global issue and anthropogenic influence on the climate system is clear. Climate models project a world with significant increases in the frequency and intensity of climate extremes and natural disasters. Although climate change impacts are not always negative, adverse impacts of climate change will alter the normal conditions of the physical environments, ecosystems, and social environments, and thus threaten the societal sustainable developments and human well-beings. The risks of climate change on human health, ecosystems, economics, agriculture, fishery and forestry have been alerted. However, we still lack a thorough understanding of climate change induced disasters as well as impacts and risks of these disasters.

To better understand the climate change impacts, a special issue focusing on Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Assessments incorporates the progresses on global change, regional climate modeling and future projections in the light of Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). It focuses on extreme events and natural disasters, and their social and economic impacts as well as advances in predictability over time and space. This special issue covers three aspects of climate change impacts, i.e., natural environments, ecosystems, and social environments.

气候变化是一个紧迫的全球性问题，人为因素对气候系统的影响是显而易见的。气候模型预测，一个世界的极端气候和自然灾害的频率和强度将大大增加。尽管气候变化的影响并不总是负面的，但气候变化的不利影响将改变自然环境，生态系统和社会环境的正常状况，从而威胁到社会的可持续发展和人类福祉。气候变化对人类健康，生态系统，经济，农业，渔业和林业的风险已经引起注意。但是，我们仍然对气候变化引发的灾害以及这些灾害的影响和风险缺乏透彻的了解。

为了更好地理解气候变化的影响，一个针对气候变化适应和灾害风险评估的专刊结合了代表性集中路径（RCP），将全球变化的进展，区域气候模型以及对未来的预测结合在一起。它着重于极端事件和自然灾害及其社会和经济影响，以及随着时间和空间的可预测性的提高。本期特刊涵盖了气候变化影响的三个方面，即自然环境，生态系统和社会环境。