Risk assessment and decision support tools for the integrated evaluation of climate change impacts on coastal zones

Nowadays there is new and stronger evidence that sea level rise, increased storminess and coastal erosion as a consequence of global warming are likely to have profound impacts on coastal communities and ecosystems. Regional Risk Assessment (RRA) is an interdisciplinary approach to evaluate and rank potential impacts, targets and areas at risk from climate change hazards. Within the Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Climate Change (CMCC) a RRA methodology was developed to assess impacts of climate change at the regional scale and to assist coastal communities in planning adaptation measures. The proposed methodology integrates the output of downscaled climate, circulation, morphodynamic and biogeochemical models to represent the exposure to climate change hazards (e.g., flooding, erosion, water quality changes) and includes the analysis of site-specific environmental and socio-economic vulnerability of coastal systems to the impact of hazards (e.g., land use, geomorphology, vegetation cover, population density). It is implemented as part of a GIS-based DEcision support SYstem for COastal climate change impact assessment (DESYCO), that will provide information about downscaled climate change scenarios and regional/local vulnerabilities and risks, and will guide decision-makers in planning appropriate adaptation strategies. The main components of the DSS and of the RRA methodology and the preliminary results of their application to the coastal area of the Northern Adriatic Sea (Italy) are here presented and discussed.