Compound and connected natural risks in the Spanish Mediterranean coast in the face of climate change. C3RiskMed

The coastal zone is one of the highest risk areas in the world due to the concentration of natural hazards and the accumulation of exposed assets and population, and this risk is very likely to significantly increase under climate change. One of the intrinsic characteristics of these hazards is that they can be induced by different climatic drivers such as surges, waves, heavy rainfall episodes and severe weather that may act individually although, in many cases, they do in an interconnected way. In spite of this, coastal risk assessments usually consider these hazards individually although it is evident the need to consider them as the result of compounding events. 

These events are generated under different conditions and produce different types of impact, with important implications for risk management because they may (i) significantly increase the magnitude of the impact during the event, and/or (ii) overwhelm the emergency-response ability since services have to be distributed across the territory to respond to a large number of simultaneous emergencies. In spite of this, their combined action is seldomly considered, with most of studies considering both types of hazards as they were univariate. Although this may be an acceptable approach in some geographical areas, it would not be a robust strategy in the Spanish Mediterranean coast. In fact, existing studies seem to suggest that flash floods may locally play a dominant role in controlling the magnitude of flood risks in the coastal zone when they are present, whereas the impact of coastal storms would have a much larger spatial extent.

In this context, C3RiskMed aims to break this partial-oriented approach through the coordination of two research teams from UPC and UB that will contribute to characterize in an integrated manner compound risks in the Spanish Mediterranean coast associated with the presence of coastal storms and heavy rainfall and severe weather events.