Climate Change Risk Assessment and Management
The primary aim of the research unit is to develop and apply methodologies for the analysis of environmental impacts and risks related to climate change and natural hazards. Interdisciplinary approaches and tools (e.g. risk and vulnerability assessment, multi criteria decision analysis, spatial indicators, decision support systems, ecological risk models) are employed for the assessment of impacts associated to one or more environmental stressors at different spatial and temporal scales (e.g. climate variability and change, chemicals, land use changes). Particular emphasis is given to the development of Regional Risk Assessment (RRA) and Multi-Risk Assessment (MRA) methodologies able to consider the complex relations between multiple hazards and exposed receptors on different natural and human systems. Research activities are also devoted to the assessment of the consequences of climate change on environmental fate and transport of chemicals and on the evaluation of related risks for ecological and human systems.
All the research products are implemented in GIS-based Decision Support Systems (DSSs) that guide stakeholders and decision makers in the spatial analysis of the potential consequences associated to climate change and in the definition of suitable risk management and adaptation options.
The interdisciplinary work is carried out in collaboratio with research groups from the Euro-Mediterranean Centre on Climate Change (CMCC, www.cmcc.it) and the Venice Centre for Climate Studies (VICCS, http://www.unive.it/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=172748).