Climate change is taking place and is progressing. To fight climate change there are two necessary strategies which have to be pursued simultaneously. Firstly there is climate mitigation which mainly focuses greenhouse gas reduction to limit climate change. Secondly there is climate adaptation which on the one hand consists of adaption measures to the creeping processes of climate change, like temperature rising or long-term changes of rainfall, but on the other hand of extreme weather events with increasing frequency and intensity. For climate change adaptation it is important that stakeholders from all relevant sectors get adequately integrated into the process. Because of the circumstance that the impacts of climate change are different from region to region, adaptation measures should be realized on regional as well as on local level. The dissertation elaborates on the role of stakeholders within the framework of climate change adaptation, while a special focus is set on regional and local vulnerability assessments. Adaptation to climate change can only be successful if stakeholders get integrated by actively participation in the process and recognizing the need of early adaptation measures. This is why bottom-up approaches are very important to handle the regional and local impacts of climate change. The processes can considerably profit from local-historical and expert-knowledge of the stakeholders. To act in climate adaptation it is necessary to know where stakeholders have to act. Before adaptation measures can be realized, knowledge of the focus region’s or municipality’s vulnerability is of great importance. The dissertation shows how awareness-raising on the impacts of climate change und the acceptance to possible adaptation measures can be increased by the intensive involvement and participation of the regional and local stakeholders during a vulnerability assessment and how the whole process is winning quality by the knowledge of the stakeholders. Vulnerability assessment research agrees that stakeholder participation in vulnerability assessments is a necessity, but it is yet unclear how the approach of stakeholder participation has to be executed to guarantee success. Here the approach of a stakeholder or actor orientated vulnerability assessment is derived from two projects based approaches in South Hessen, Germany. The dissertation makes therefore a contribution to the discussion on climate adaptation governance. To advance the assessment approach a case study analyses is executed, which represents itself in three phases. Stakeholder approaches of four different climate adaptation projects are analyzed. In the first phase the approach in South Hessen is compared to the assessment approaches of three similar projects. Based on the results of the comparison a general system of planning aims for an actor-oriented vulnerability assessment is developed. In the third step of the case study analysis, all four considered assessments are checked on their degree of accomplishing aimed for outcomes and in a last step are being reviewed on their actor orientation. Suggestions are drawn from the conclusions regarding the accomplishment of an actor-oriented vulnerability assessment.