The unprecedented threat of climate change is posing a severe risk to human activities, due to the increasing frequency and magnitude of extreme events.
Introducing Climate Proofing in Investments and Spatial Planning (ICPISP) is a project by Enel Foundation and VIU – TEN Program, in collaboration with the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC). It aims at applying a multi‐hazard approach for a Socio‐Economic Regional Risk Assessment (SERRA).
Practitioners in multiple economic sectors, from infrastructural to financial, are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of climate proofing in strategic planning and decision‐making to cope with climate risk. Climate proofing includes the assessment of risk to exposed receptors, taking into account their vulnerability to climate hazards – such as floods or heat waves – in the given environmental and socio‐economic context (i.e. socialecological system).
Studies show how climate change in Alpine Regions is expected to affect temperature, seasonality of precipitation, global radiation, relative humidity and frequency/intensity of rainfall extremes and floods, in the colder part of the year. Mountain areas, where limited spatial accessibility may exacerbate the consequences of extreme events, are prevented from recovering from critical situations.
The area selected for this project is the Italian Province of Belluno, located in the South‐Eastern Alps, where recent events, notably storm damages – among which Vaia in 2018 – provided further evidence of the importance of climate proofing in spatial planning, in order to cope with the adverse effects of extreme events.
The project assesses and quantifies risks in the area linked to climate change, following the Kulturisk project integrated approach, which combines classical spatial risk assessment with socioeconomic analysis and valuation to estimate damages associated with potential risks of different kind and magnitude.
Engagement of the key stakeholders and dissemination actions are key elements of the project.
