Map-based assessment of vulnerability to climate change employing regional indicators (MAVERIC)

The central aim of this project is to map quantitative measures of vulnerability to climate change at municipality scale across Finland. The project's specific research objectives are to identify climate variables of importance for selected human activities in Finland and to use observations and model-based future projections of these variables to describe exposure to climate change; examine alternative impact models for evaluating sectoral or system sensitivity to climate change, and analyse their suitability for application at municipality scale; define appropriate indicators of adaptive capacity to climate change based on the modification of existing sustainability indicators and scenarios, a literature review and discussions with representatives from selected pilot study regions; finalise a set of vulnerability indicators for Finland as a whole and develop web-based methods to map these interactively; report results at stakeholder workshops to obtain feedback and facilitate refinement and nationwide application of the vulnerability indicators; and publish the results in the peer reviewed literature. The interdisciplinary and multi-institutional project team is applying social science methods to investigate the key determinants of adaptive capacity in selected sectors at municipality level, and combining measures of these with climatic and biophysical information on exposure and sensitivity to climate change to derive alternative indicators of present-day and future (mid-21st century) vulnerability to changing climate.