Improving ClimAte Resilience of crItical Assets

The number of climate-related disasters has been progressively increasing in the last two decades and this trend could be drastically exacerbated in the medium- and long-term horizons according to climate change projections. In this framework, through a multi-disciplinary team and a strong background acquired in relevant recent projects, ICARIA aims to promote the use of asset level modelling to achieve a better understanding on climate related tangible direct and indirect impacts produced by complex, cascading and compound disasters and the related risk reduction provided by suitable, sustainable and cost-effective adaptation solutions.

ICARIA focuses on both critical assets and infrastructures that were not designed to consider potential climate changes that can increase the unplanned outages and failures, and also on housing, natural and land areas. Cutting edge methods regarding climate scenario building, assets level coupled models and multi-risk assessment approaches will be implemented and replicated in three EU regions to understand how future climates might affect life-cycle costs of these investments in the coming decades and to help risk owners managing public and private infrastructures to assess costs and benefits of various adaptation solutions. Two of the three case studies, Barcelona Metropolitan Area and the archipelago of South Aegean region, are located in the coastal area of the Mediterranean and are facing increasingly extreme weather events (storm surges, pluvial floods, heatwaves, drought and forest fire) with critical socio-economic and environmental impacts. The third region is situated in Austria, representing an area that is highly affected by climate change with effects (glacier melt and heatwaves) that directly impact the prevailing energy production assets (extremely critical infrastructures) and other important sectors. Moreover, other seven follower regions (third parties) will be the first candidates for replication beyond the project. In this context, ICARIA also fosters several actions to maximize replication and outreaching of the main project outcomes.

ICARIA consortium is composed of 16 partners located in 6 EU countries. AQUATEC and UPC share the coordination of the project covering, respectively, administrative/legal and scientific responsibilities with the support of several technical and cross cutting partners formed by technology centres, universities and private companies and the involvement of regional authorities as risk owners of the local critical infrastructures.