Workplan

WP1. Data Acquisition & Management

This WP is transversal to the project and it comprises the collection of data and their pre-processing for the achievement of all project objectives. 

The main goal of this WP is to compile/obtain and preprocess series of multidimensional data along the Spanish Mediterranean coast to characterize all components determining the compound and connected risks and their management. Collected data must serve to:

• Characterization of hazards under current conditions.
• Characterization of hazards under climate change.
• Characterization of the remarkability and connectivity of events.
• Characterization of exposure and vulnerability of the territory.
• Characterization of risk management strategies and measures.

WP2. Compound events under current conditions

As previously mentioned, compound events considered in this project refers to three types of co-occurrence of heavy rainfall episodes and coastal storms: multivariate, spatially- and temporally- compounding. 

The main goal of this WP is to characterize the occurrence of compound events along the Spanish Mediterranean coast under current conditions. This involves the following tasks:

• Identification of compound events in hazard time series.
• Empirical analysis of compound events.
• Multivariate distribution of compound events.
• Identification and classification of dominant weather types.

WP3. Remarkability of events

Once compound events have been identified, it is necessary to assess their importance as a function of the induced impact as well as the produced emergency level. While WP2 focused on processing of the events mainly from a top-down perspective, based on the magnitude of hydrometeorological and marine hazards involved, this WP focusses on aspects related to their capacity of damage. Furthermore, a bottom-up approach will be adopted to identify whether existing events that might have not been previously identified from the hazard characteristics, are worth to be included. In order to do this, it is necessary to define impact indicators common to different types of events, associated with hydrometeorological and coastal hazards. The aim is to design an index that integrates those indicators, named remarkability index, following the terminology developed by other authors, though commonly referred to individual risks (e.g. Boudou, 2015).

 This involves the following tasks:

• To identify different types of damage, including cascading effects.
• To define a remarkability index (RI) that accounts for the previously mentioned typology and the level of severity.
• To classify compound events obtained in WP2 according to the RI.
• To complete the compound event series with possible remarkable events not identified in WP2.

WP4. Physical and societal factors determining compound and connected risks

The magnitude of the impact of compound events identified in WP3 and their associated risk must be attributed to the occurrence and intensity of involved hazards, and to the level of exposure and vulnerability of the affected areas (e.g. Kron, 2005; Visser et al. 2014). The combination of hazard estimates with exposure and vulnerability values will permit to predict the expected damage and, in consequence, to help in risk assessment and management (Koks et al. 2015; Zhou et al. 2017). 

Moreover, the combination of natural hazards such as the compound drivers here considered with societal factors can exacerbate the climate-related hazards causing their impacts to be amplified relative to the impacts from those same events occurring separately or univariately. This is what Raymon et al (2020) call connected events, and where the societal driver is so important as the climate one.

Within this context, the objectives of this WP are:

• To develop/adapt a set of indicators to measure the vulnerability, exposure and resilience of the coastal zone to the impact of compound events adapted to conditions typical of the Spanish Mediterranean coast.
• To develop/adapt an integrated index reflecting all factors modulating the impact of compound hazards in the coastal zone by integrating partial indicators.
• To compute these indicators along the study under representative conditions of the time of impact of identified compound events.
• To combine the computed conditioning indicators with the magnitude of hazards to compare with observed impacts. To identify the occurrence of connected events and driving factors.
• To assess compound risks along the study area under current conditions.

WP5. Compound and connected risks in the face of climate change

In this WP we shall evaluate the impact of climate change on the occurrence and characteristics of compound and connected risks along the Spanish Mediterranean coast. This implies to assess the direct effect of climatic change on climate drivers (rainfall and coastal storms) as well as indirect (connected) effects through induced changes in system vulnerability (e.g. Zscheischler et al. 2018).  

This involves the following tasks:

• To assess changes in characteristics of compound events under selected scenarios.
• To assess potential changes in vulnerability along the study area under selected CC scenarios.
• To assess changes in compound and connected risks under selected scenarios.

WP6. Risk management and adaptation strategies 

C3MedRisk tackles the analysis and proposing risk management and adaptation strategies in a relatively complex context. Firstly, it deals with a large geographical area, the Spanish Mediterranean coast which cover geographical units of different environmental and socio-economic characteristics, with managers and stakeholders having their local perspective and approach. Secondly, the extreme events considered in this project are complex, and produce significant impacts since their spatial scale is large or very large, and although episodic, their time scale is usually longer than typical univariate events. Consequently, the adopted approach is to consider three types of measures to manage risks and increase the resilience from a holistic perspective: the proposal of tools to improve the emergency management, the mitigation of potential impacts, and the adaptation to future climate scenarios. These approaches will be applied to the different compound events attending their remarkability. 

Within this context, the objectives of this WP are:

• To make an up-to-date inventory and diagnosis of the current risk management measures.
• To identify and define possible adaptation strategies based on the observed type of damage.
• To provide support to assist the decision-making process during the emergency management phase.
• To assess the cost of risk management measures for representative compound events.
• To recommend risk management and adaptation measures according to the characteristics of the study site.