Welcome

 

The impact of extreme storms such as Gloria in January 2020 has drastically showed the integrated effect of compound events, during which different climatic hazards such as waves, surges, heavy rainfall and flood episodes may simultaneously occur in the territory.

Moreover, the combination of different typologies of compounding hazards, and the spatial variation in vulnerability and exposure along the coastal zone, may result in compound and connected events with their impacts to be amplified relative to the impacts from those same events occurring separately.

This is illustrated with the flooding of the Tordera Delta coast (Barcelona) due to the combined action of the river and waves during the impact of the storm Gloria the sea (photo: Cos d'Agents Rurals).

In spite of this, their combined action is seldomly considered, with most of studies considering both types of hazards as they were univariate. This is also extendable to the development of risk management strategies, where the different groups of hazards and their main influence zone are addressed separately. 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.