Responses to coastal climate change: innovative strategies for high end scenarios – adaptation and mitigation (RISES-AM)

Description:

Coastal areas concentrate vulnerability to climate change due to high levels of population, economic activity and ecological values. Starting from this consideration, RISES-AM aims at assessing the cross-sectoral and economy-wide impacts and vulnerability of coastal systems at local, regional and global scales, across the full range of representative concentration pathways (RCPs) and shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs). This general objective is articulated in the following specific objectives:

• Develop a set of adaptation pathways for the more vulnerable socio-economic and environmental coastal systems at regional and global scales, introducing retreat and accommodate adaptation options in addition to protection approaches and including local-scale-derived innovative options.
• Assess the synergies and trade-offs between these adaptation options under a range of mitigation scenarios considering possible higher growth (eventually negative growth for some developed countries) socio-economic scenarios for the coast and socio-economic impacts across scales.
• Account for the significant uncertainties in both the “drivers” (physical and socio-economic variables) and coastal system responses (e.g. land loss, ecosystem services, etc.), as well as the capacity and issues raised by adaptation.
• Introduce the risk-vulnerability-hazard methodology into climatic analysis to achieve a higher level of objectivity in the assessments and to reduce the socio-politic lack of confidence associated to subjective evaluations, among them some related to climatic change.
• Determine what level and timing of climate mitigation is needed to avoid social, ecological and economic adaptation tipping points in coastal areas.
• Investigate the compatibility of local scale assessments and interventions with regional or global analysis, determining the main feedbacks across sectors (physic-ecologic and socio-economic) and how they condition the dynamic approach to adaptation.
• Increase the knowledge about the functioning of the coastal system under climatic variability, developing a methodology to determine impacts at various scales and to expand the battery of coastal “solutions”, outlining novel (“green”) types of interventions.
• Involve coastal society at all levels to raise awareness about coastal zone vulnerability under future climatic (high end) scenarios, showing the capability of present scientific “tools” to provide advance information on future impacts and risks.

 

To respond to these objectives RISES-AM activities are structured into six technical work packages:

• WP1 - Cross scale Assessment Structure (CAS), setting the assessment approach and framework applied throughout the project, in each assessment case (Ebro delta, Danube delta, Elba estuary, Liverpool Bay and Mersey estuary, Catalan coast, Croatian coast, Maldives, Low-lying sandy coast as in the Netherlands, Mediterranean deltas, Coastal cities, Global delta and Global assessment) and cross cutting all WP’s.
• WP2 – High-end scenarios, providing a representative range of scenarios to be considered within the project, with focus on high-end projections for socio-economic (e.g. population, urbanization, development patterns) and physical (global/regional sea level rise, extreme sea levels, storminess and waves) variables.
• WP3 – Impacts without additional adaptation, assessing impacts for selected case studies, assuming a Business as Usual (BaU) adaptation condition (i.e. no additional adaptation compared to those currently in place or planned).
• WP4 – Impacts with additional adaptation, carrying out impact assessments with additional adaptation for key economic, social, and environmental sectors within selected case studies.
• WP5 – Implications, evaluating the consequences of the previously obtained assessments looking at the broader socio-economic implications, with emphasis on the cross-feeding between scales.
• WP6 – Communication and outreach; disseminating project results at different levels, going from the scientific community to the general public.

Project information

Lead

Polytechnic University of Catalonia (ES)

Partners

National Institute for Research and Development of Marine Geology and Geoecology – GeoEcoMar (RO), Institute of Agro-food Research and Technology – IRTA (ES), University of Southampton (UK), Deltares (NL), Christian Albrechts University of Kiel – CAU (DE), Natural Environment Research Council – NERC (UK), Helmholtz Zentrum Geesthact, Centre for Materials and Coastal Research – HZG (DE), VU University of Amsterdam (NL), Global Climate Forum – GCF (DE), Euro-Mediterranean Centre on Climate Change – CMCC (IT), University of Sussex (UK)

Source of funding

EC Seventh Framework Programme (FP7)