Abstract
The research poster for the SECAP Project refers to the related workshop "Climate risk assessment: from climate impact research to adaptation planning" and contributes to answer it's guiding questions. The poster follows at the same time a new poster design concept which was suggested by the IMC2019 organizer team and points out the main findings of the case study Merano/ Meran regarding both workshop guiding questions. The climate risk assessment for the climate change adaptation strategy of Merano/ Meran followed a strongly qualitative approach, involving experts through interviews and focus group workshops from 10 different policy sectors.
The city of Merano/Meran in South Tyrol has approximately 40.000 inhabitants and is located in the Adige Valley, in the middle of the Alps on 325 m a.s.l., surrounded by mountains up to 3.000 m a.s.l. Due to its topographic position, it has micro-climatic peculiarities. Politicians are concerned of the threats emerging from climate change. Thus, they have signed the Covenant of Mayors, a European network for climate change mitigation and adaptation actions, whereby they committed the city itself to design an adaptation plan (SECAP). Therein the city seeks for a climate risk assessment that informs and supports planning, monitoring and evaluation features that enable tailor made adaptation processes for the city.
Accordingly, we from the research institution Eurac Research are trying to feed the adaptation planning process with results from trend scenarios, like global warming scenarios and assumptions on impacts, based on the South Tyrolean Report on Climate Change, published in 2018. Based on these findings, we are identifying and assessing the most relevant climate risks and vulnerabilities in collaboration with local and regional stakeholders. We are involving local actors to design specific indicators for their city, which are appropriate for setting up a sound local monitoring system. This process considers an integrated approach that includes various sectors like buildings, transport, energy, water, land use, agriculture and forestry, environment and biological diversity, but also health, civil protection and tourism.
The contribution to the session aims to give an input on the experiences and findings from applying an integrated climate risk assessment. With our experiences from this explorative case study to elaborate a climate adaptation plan for Merano/Meran, we can deliver in the workshop a valuable input for the discussion on mountain specific climate risk assessment and which characteristics of the procedure is mainly mountain-related.