RISES-AM – Responses to coastal climate change: Innovative Strategies for high End Scenarios – Adaptation and Mitigation

The project RISES-AM addresses the economy-wide impacts of coastal systems to various types of high-end climatic scenarios (including marine and riverine variables).

Duration
36 months from 01/11/2013 to 31/10/2016
Funded by
  • European Commission - FP7

Coordinating organization
  • UPC - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya

CMCC Project manager
CMCC Institutes

CMCC Divisions

General aims

Coastal areas concentrate vulnerability to climate change due to high levels of population, economic activity and ecological values. Because of that RISES-AM addresses the economy-wide impacts of coastal systems to various types of high-end climatic scenarios (including marine and riverine variables). The emphasis is on the advantages of flexible management with novel types of coastal interventions (e.g. “green” options) within an adaptive pathway whose tipping points will be identified/quantified in the project.
The extended/improved suite of models will be applied across scales and focusing on the most vulnerable coastal archetypes such as deltas, estuaries, port cities and small islands. This will lead to a motivated analysis of the synergies and trade-off between mitigation and adaptation, including what level and timing of climate mitigation is needed to avoid social, ecological and economic adaptation tipping points in coastal areas. The project shall evaluate the direct and indirect costs of high-end scenarios (e.g. the increasing demand for safety under increasingly adverse conditions) for coasts with/without climate change and contribute to determining which policy responses are needed at the European and global levels in the context of international climate discussions. The project will finally transfer results to authorities, users and stakeholders from all economic sectors converging in coastal zones, including the climate research community.


CMCC Role

CMCC will be involved in the work package concerning the high end scenarios, associated with temperature changes up to 6º C, which imply the largest intensification of coastal hazards due to the global and regional sea level rise, changes in extreme sea levels and waves.


Expected results
  • A first objective is to select RCP high-end scenarios (highest emission, with likely temperature rise of 6ºC) with concomitant socio-economic scenarios and demonstrate that extensive changes in coastal areas are driven not only by climate change, but they are also highly determined by socio-economic development.
  • A second aspect concerns the regional downscaling of sea level for the Mediterranean and Black seas. This will produce a map of sea level patterns and projections of sea level rise for each RCP scenario and complementary upper limit estimates.
  • A third expectation is to derive global projections of extreme storm surge levels and sea wave heights for selected areas. By using a combination of dynamic and/or statistical downscaling it will be possible to obtain projections of surges and waves on a regional scale.

Activity

CMCC main contribution is to diagnose storm track changes in high-end RCP scenarios. Further it will compute projections of sea level rise, extreme storm surge levels and sea wave heights for the Mediterranean Sea with a further downscaling for the Catalan coast.


Partners
  • CMCC - Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici
  • Deltares
  • SOTON - University of Southampton United
  • GeoEcoMar - Institutul national de cercetare-dezvoltare pentru geologie si geoecologie marina-geoecomar
  • HZG - Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht - Zentrum für Material und Küstenforschung
  • NERC - Natural Environment Research Council
  • IRTA
  • CAU
  • VU-VUmc
  • GCF - Global Climate Forum
  • UOS

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