This special issue of Global Environmental Change presents some emerging conceptual and empirical advances in the understanding of adaptation to climate change, at a range of spatial scales. These include explicit consideration of the role of climate information in adaptation planning - who knows what and who needs to know what for effective adaptation actions to proceed? Empirical evidence on how information on climate risks has been used in adaptation decisions demonstrates (in the papers by Conway and Tompkins) that adaptation proceeds in a piecemeal fashion with both individual interests and collective senses of risk involved in using scenarios or experience in implementing change.