Improving ClimAte Resilience of crItical Assets

Project Information

ICARIA

Grant agreement ID: 101093806

DOI

10.3030/101093806

Project closed

EC signature date 25 October 2022

Start date 1 January 2023

End date 31 March 2026

Funded under

• Climate, Energy and Mobility

Total cost

€ 2 294 146,25

EU contribution

€ 2 294 146,00

Coordinated by

AQUATEC SOLUCIONES MEDIOAMBIENTALES, S.A.
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ICARIA (Improving ClimAte Resilience of crItical Assets)

Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2024-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

ICARIA (Improving Climate Resilience of Critical Assets) aims to promote the use of a comprehensive asset level modeling framework to achieve a better understanding about climate related impacts and cascading effects produced by complex, compound disasters and the possible risk reduction provided by suitable, sustainable and cost-effective adaptation solutions.
The project employs an asset level modeling approach to address multi-risk management focusing on the most relevant climate hazards (flood, storm surge, heatwave, windstorms, drought, and forest fire, also including compound events) and their intangible and tangible impacts assessment (direct and indirect losses including cascading effects on main services and assets).

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

ICARIA project, with a duration of 3 years, started in January 2023. In its first half, several achievements have been reached as shown by the deliverables uploaded on the project webpage (https://www.icaria-project.eu/).
At this stage, several ICARIA results have been obtained and some solutions, including methods and tools, have been prepared, updated and tested to be applied in the 3 different EU regions (Barcelona Metropolitan Area, Salzburg Region and South Aegean Region), selected as project case studies (CS) to assess climate risk and regional resilience for current and future scenarios.
Within Work Package (WP) 1, the ICARIA holistic modeling framework defined the procedure to achieve a comprehensive risk/impact assessment across different climate-related hazards in the context of climate change. Although implemented and validated through the 3 ICARIA CS, the framework is exportable to any other EU region. Furthermore, tailored near and long-term climate projections (up to 2100) of Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) have been downscaled for the 3 ICARIA CS based on the last emission scenarios used in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. Both statistical and dynamical approaches have been used allowing comparison of results and techniques. Finally, data gaps related to the whole risk assessment process (from climate data drivers to vulnerability and impact models) have been addressed.
WP2 and 3 have focused on hazard and impact models respectively. Specifically, hazard and impact assessment methodologies have been tailored to evaluate, firstly, the potential effects of climate change scenarios on different strategic assets and services and, secondly, the capacity of risk reduction of specific adaptation solutions. From the point of view of hazard assessment, ICARIA is considering coincident (occurring simultaneously) and consecutive (occurring successively) multiple hazards to take into account their possible exacerbation effect. This issue has been treated through the definition of the hazard modeling interactions and joint probability assessment of compound events based on copula probability theory.
Regarding risk assessment, several possible cascading effects have been defined and will be evaluated taking into account dynamics of disasters whereby the impact of a climate hazard generates a sequence of events and interactive causal chains among interdependent services and assets. 3 different tools from recent projects (Resilience Assessment Framework, Resilience Assessment Tool, Portfolio of Adaptation Measures) have been updated including new functionalities and a greater scope (https://icaria.lnec.pt/ and https://www.icariastrategies.eu) while ICARIA Decision Support System (DSS) is currently under development according to project timeline.
To foster and ensure the replicability of the main project outcomes, two cycles of comprehensive risk and resilience assessment processes are to be performed in the CS. In each region, the first assessment (Trials) will focus on the best known and experienced climate hazards and potentially affected assets, while the second cycle (Mini-trials) will focus on other disasters and assets whose innovative methodologies will be replicated from other CS. With the aim of ensuring the readiness of ICARIA solutions, several tests regarding new or updated project methods and tools have been performed in the project lab tasks. Within WP4, “Trial design” has been already performed in each ICARIA CS.
Within WP5, several communication activities have been carried out (definition of graphic identity, building, launching and follow up of the project website, sharing of project newsletters and blogs, etc). In terms of dissemination achievements, ICARIA project position paper was published, while other scientific contributions have been published in scientific and technical journals such as proceedings of national and international conferences.
Social Sciences and Humanities disciplines have been employed to create and launch tailored Communities of Practices (CoPs) for each region involving case study facilitators, scientific experts, problem owners and other relevant stakeholders. A participatory process was fostered during the local workshop using to identify gaps and needs, to achieve a better understanding about risk awareness and to ensure co-creation of adaptation solutions. Two first workshops have been held in each region during the first phase of the project. A Stakeholder Engagement Plan has been elaborated as the reference document for both activating CoPs and developing related activities.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

To date, ICARIA has already achieved several scientific and technological results beyond the state of the art.
● A comprehensive Risk Assessment Project Framework including coincident and consecutive compound hazard events, multi-risk assessment including cascading effects scenarios and dynamic vulnerability
● Tailored climate scenarios for the ICARIA CS using both statistical and dynamical downscaling approaches
● Methods for mending the data gaps and uncertainty analysis related to climate and impact models
● Cutting edge multi-hazard and multi risk asset level models
● Resilience assessment models and tools focused on the evaluation of the climate resilience of strategic assets and services
● Portfolio of adaptation solutions to achieve a proper comparison among different adaptation strategies
These results (methodologies and tools) are being tested and implemented in 3 ICARIA CS and will be proposed to a group of 7 other follower regions beyond the end of the project.