The multidimensional concept of climate change risk explored by Elisa Furlan, researcher at CMCC RAAS Division.

What is the importance of integrating different kinds of information for climate change adaptation? Elisa Furlan, CMCC researcher at RAAS Division, answers this question at the CMCC Annual Meeting 2019 with a talk titled “Composite indices for climate change risk assessment and adaptation planning”.

“Climate change risk is a complex concept that comprises many aspects: exposure, vulnerability, hazards. Therefore, we need risk-based tools supporting the integration of these elements”- explains Elisa.

For this reason, researchers at the RAAS Division have been working on developing 4 integrated indices, presented by Elisa Furlan during her talk. The Flood damage Index integrates information about hazard scenarios and modelling that allows to evaluate direct damages (for example the loss of infrastructures) and also indirect damages (e.g. economic losses due to the interruption of activities) deriving from floods. In turn, the Coastal vulnerability index integrates environmental, socio-economic and climate related information to make it possible to rank the vulnerability of Italian coastal provinces. The last two indices developed by RAAS researchers, Climate adaptation and the Coastal Resilience indices, include information on social vulnerability, which is a key element to understand the adaptive capacity of the different communities in the face of climate change impacts.

As stressed by Elisa Furlan, “the unique power of these tools lies in their capacity to integrate heterogeneous qualitative and quantitative information spanning from the socio-economic, environmental and climate hazard domains in a unique measure that can support decision makers and planners in implementing integrated coastal management and adaptation planning measures.”