High-level characterisation and mapping of key climate-change hazards in European coastal cities

Abstract

Sea-level and temperature rise due to climate change exacerbate existing climate-related hazards in coastal areas. In this work, an approach based on Coastal City Living Labs is developed to carry out a high-level characterisation of key climate-related hazards for ten European coastal cities. The Coastal City Living Labs are conceived as physical and virtual spaces in which stakeholders meet for collaboration, co-creation and co-ideation to solve the challenges posed by climate-related hazards. The information on past extreme climate events and local knowledge thus obtained are combined to identify the main hazards for each city. Subsequently, these hazards are categorised based on the recommendations of the recent Sixth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The main climate-related hazards are found to be storms, coastal and land flooding, and coastal erosion. Importantly, significant differences are found between the specific cities as to the main hazards of concern. Even within the same coastal city, relevant differences are found in respect of the main hazards, depending on the area considered. It follows that granularity in the characterisation of the hazards is fundamental in designing mitigation measures. To clarify the spatial extent of the different hazards in each coastal city, bespoke maps are produced through GIS software. In addition to the interest of the results for the specific cities investigated, this work provides a methodology to assess climate-related hazards in coastal areas using Coastal City Living Labs, which can be applied elsewhere.