Widespread changes to climate-sensitive systems are placing increased demands on risk assessments as a key for managing climate risk, enabling adaptive responses and enhancing system resilience. Although the complex, uncertain and ambiguous nature of climate-sensitive systems has been long recognised, recent attention on concepts such as compounding and cascading risks, deep uncertainty and ‘bottom-up’ risk assessment frameworks have stressed the need to more explicitly confront the overarching theme of systemic complexity. Drawing on insights from the field of systems thinking, we provide a theoretical foundation for addressing systemic complexity when assessing climate risks. We first describe the sources of systemic complexity as they pertain to climate risk, and highlight the role of climate risk assessment as a formal sense-making device that enables learning and the organisation of knowledge of the interplay between the climate-sensitive system and its (climatological) environment. We then highlight boundary judgements as one of the core concerns of risk assessment, acting as a filter of both information and value judgements, and thereby creating islands of analytical and cognitive tractability in a complex, uncertain and ambiguous world. Yet boundary judgements necessarily result in partiality, leading to the need for boundary critique, which emphasises the need of multi-methodologies and second-order learning processes as part of standard risk assessment practice. We build these concepts into a framework that divides climate risk assessments into five distinct but interrelated concerns or ‘problematics’ that collectively can be used as a starting point for managing systemic complexity in the assessment of climate risk. 

How to cite: Zscheischler, J. and Westra, S.: Accounting for systemic complexity in the assessment of climate risk, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-5017, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-5017, 2023.

Climate change media coverage shapes climate-related societal and political debates and decisions [1, 2]. Yet it is unclear what drives media attention for climate change. More frequent and more intense weather extremes are a clear consequence of climate change and have a large impact on society. Extreme weather events might hence be an important factor for climate coverage. Here, we investigate whether weather extremes lead to more climate change coverage in the media. Further, we analyse how this changes over time and whether it differs between different types of extreme weather events such as heat waves or floods. Finally, we examine how the influence on climate coverage varies between weather extremes and other climate-related events such as climate protests, IPCC report publications and world climate summits.

To this end, we analyse approximately nine million articles from nine German newspapers over the last three decades (1991 - 2021). The selection of newspapers is diverse and includes regional and national media, daily and weekly publication rhythms, as well as various political leanings. Currently, the nine newspapers have a cumulative readership of more than 12 million people. Within all nine million articles, we identify approximately 57 000 climate-related articles, using a bag-of-word machine learning approach. Changes in the share of climate-related articles are evaluated against the background of the occurrence of weather extremes and other climate-related events, while controlling for potential confounders using fixed effects panel regressions. Information about extreme weather events are derived from the meteorological ERA5 reanalysis data as well as from the international disasters' database EM-DAT. In addition, we use data on activists’ protest, scientific publications and political climate-related conferences, derived from press releases of the corresponding organizations. 

Our study provides evidence that weather extremes increase climate change coverage. Separate analyses for the three decades (1991 - 2000, 2001 - 2010, 2011 - 2021) show that the influence of weather extremes on climate coverage increases over time. Differences in the influence on climate coverage are found for different weather extreme types. The influence of floods in Germany on climate coverage is about twice as large as that of heat waves. Comparing the effect of weather extremes with that of other climate-related events shows that the influence of social events on climate coverage is much stronger than the influence of weather extremes. We find evidence that protests exceed the influence of heat waves by a factor of four, and world climate summits even exceed the influence of heat waves by a factor of ten. These trends apply to all newspapers studied and are preserved under different controls and alternative climate coverage measures.

[1] Brulle, R. J., Carmichael, J. & Jenkins, J. C. Shifting public opinion on climate change: An empirical assessment of factors influencing concern over climate change in the U.S., 2002-2010. Climatic Change 114, 169–188 (2012).

[2] Sampei, Y. & Aoyagi-Usui, M. Mass-media coverage, its influence on public awareness of climate-change issues, and implications for Japan’s national campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Global Environmental Change 19, 203–212 (2009).

How to cite: Lochner, J. H., Stechemesser, A., and Wenz, L.: Effect of weather extremes on climate change media coverage - Evidence from 57 000 newspaper articles, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-16961, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-16961, 2023.

Extreme weather and climate events (EWCEs) have jeopardized crop yields globally. The evidenced increasing trends of EWCEs would amplify their impacts if they co-occurred. This would bring additional shocks to global food markets, and result in severe risks to food security. A systemical analysis of the risk of crop yield failure under EWCEs and their changes in a warming future is essential to guide adaptations adequately and ensure food security. In this study, we compared the relations between maize yield anomalies and 14 climatic indices over the growing season in the breadbasket (10 provinces) in China during 1981-2018 to identify the main EWCEs determining maize yield anomalies. We then compared the probabilities of crop yield failure under current climatic conditions and its projected changes under 1.5 and 2.0 ^oC global warming using 28 climate models from CMIP6. The result shows that the maize yield anomalies can be mainly explained by extreme temperate-related indices, despite the various indices for individual provinces. The probability of synchronous yield failure in 1981-2018 was below 7.5% when we randomly summed up seven maize provinces among ten. The probability may reach 2.45% and 7.73% on average under 1.5 and 2.0 ^oC global warming conditions for all ten provinces, respectively. The transferred risk of crop yield failure revealed that more current maize land would be outstripping its climate-safe space under warmer conditions. Our results highlighted the benefits of limiting global temperature rise within 1.5 ^oC. Furthermore, enhancing crop resistance to adverse climate situations through appropriate adaptations would be a promising solution to stabilize crop productivity.

How to cite: Liu, S. and Xiao, L.: Limit global warming to 1.5 oC will alleviate the synchronous failure of maize yield in China, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-13890, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-13890, 2023.

Studies on projected agricultural yields focus on end-of-century scenarios. Simulations from the Global Gridded Crop Model Intercomparison (GGCMI) Project phase 3b show conflicting results for global and regional changes of different crops by the end of the century. Here, we interrogate the same simulations, focusing on year-to-year variations of agricultural yields in the important staple crops maize, rice, soybean and wheat.

An ensemble of GGCMI models shows a larger agreement on the variations of crop yields than for the long-term trend. Year-to-year variations of projected crop yields become more pronounced over time, especially so for negative crop yield anomalies. As a result, the frequency of negative global crop yield extremes increases with global warming. We show that these negative yield extremes may occur for individual or multiple crops at the same time, and may originate from individual or multiple regions. North America dominates global maize and soybean yield extremes (57% and 44% of all significant global extremes, respectively), and South East Asia and South Asia are important for rice extremes (24% and 22%, respectively), while regional results are inconclusive for wheat. Multi-crop extremes occur most commonly for the combination of maize and soybean, and are dominated by the North America region. Based on these findings, we show that depending on the region and crop, persistent spring or summer drought, cold or heat can be associated with years of global and regional negative agricultural yield extremes.

Our results show how specific climatic boundary conditions can lead to year-to-year extremes in important staple crops, highlighting the potential to anticipate such events in the future.

How to cite: Borchert, L., Orlov, A., Jägermeyer, J., Müller, C., and Sillmann, J.: Negative year-to-year agricultural yield extremes projected to occur more frequently under global warming, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-3378, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-3378, 2023.

Extreme climate events constitute a major risk to global food production. Among these, the extreme rainfall is often dismissed from historical analyses and future projections, whose impacts and mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here, we find that rice yield reductions due to extreme rainfall in China were comparable to those induced by extreme heat over the last two decades, reaching 7.6 ± 0.9% (one standard error) according to nationwide observations and 8.1 ± 1.1% according to the crop model incorporating the mechanisms revealed from manipulative experiments. Extreme rainfall reduces rice yield mainly by limiting nitrogen availability for tillering that lowers per-area effective panicles and by exerting physical disturbance on pollination that declines per-panicle filled grains. Considering these mechanisms, we projected ~8% additional yield reduction due to extreme rainfall under warmer climate by the end of the century. These findings demonstrate the critical importance to account for extreme rainfall in food security assessments, posing greater challenges to climate change adaptation.

How to cite: Jian, Y., Fu, J., Wang, X., and Zhou, F.: Extreme rainfall reduces one-twelfth of China’s rice yield, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-4835, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-4835, 2023.

Wooden pile dwellings (WPD) are an inexhaustible and precious source of information on landscape evolution and contingent cultural activities. There have been significant investigations on WPD submerged in Alpine areas, but important knowledge gaps are evident regarding Mediterranean volcanic and karstic lakes. The conservation of the latter archaeological remnants is endangered by the climatic change impacts and anthropogenic pressure, further exacerbated by the sensitive and circumscribed lake environments. Wood from pile dwellings is waterlogged, and its conservation mostly depends on the surrounding environment i.e. sediments and water quality. This project aims to study all the aspects of WPD in volcanic and karstic lakes through studies ranging from their potential exploitation, the investigation into their conservation and restoration, monitoring lake environment and forecasting scenarios through an aquarium reproducing the most significant abiotic conditions occurring in the lake. This last study will be achieved by means of an aquarium model. Three case studies have been selected in which agricultural practices influence climatic stress and pollution impact: Lake Banyoles in Spain and Lakes Bolsena and Mezzano in Italy. The foreseen investigations will employ an extraordinarily wide spectrum of skills and disciplines (palynology, dendrochronology, micromorphology, soil science and innovative tools like isotopic analysis). The characterization of wooden materials will involve gravimetric measurements, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) and thermogravimetry. Samples will derive from different sources to include immersed, reburied finds and restored wood, lake water and lake sediment samples. The main activities will be devoted to fields campaigns and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), high-resolution methods for monitoring environmental conditions (for example the installed probe will measure water lake temperature, pH and so on), capitalization of results (network of big data about lake sites), involvement of local actors and population on the historical, cultural and environmental value of WPDs to establish decision-making processes and to foster high-quality tourism.

How to cite: Tamantini, S., Sidoti, G., Antonelli, F., Galotta, G., Moscatelli, M. C., Kržišnik, D., Vinciguerra, V., Marabottini, R., Macro, N., and Romagnoli, M.: The WOODPDLAKE project. Lakes, wood and sediment: Natural and Cultural Heritage affected by climate changes, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-15116, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-15116, 2023.

The climatic cooling effects associated with large magnitude volcanic eruptions – the so-called ‘volcanic winter’ scenario – have long been identified as an extreme risk that may impact the continued flourishing of humanity. Such eruptions are relatively rare, but perhaps not as rare as we might think. A greater understanding of this mechanism and increased resolution of our geological records through the study of ice core records demonstrate that the recurrence of an eruption capable of this impact may be as frequent as 1 in 6 per century. These large magnitude volcanic eruptions (VEI 7 and above), could cause a global cooling event for up to a decade, if not longer, with more severe effects felt in the northern hemisphere, presenting a unique challenge for global food security.

Further, viewed through the lens of vulnerability, human society now closely intersects with regions of volcanic activity, potentially forging new pathways for volcanic eruptions to cause global disruption. Our research identified regions of intersection, or ‘pinch points’, where a compounding of global critical systems and infrastructure, such as submarine cables, global shipping lanes, and transportation networks, are proximal to regions of volcanic activity. These pinch points present locations in our interconnected world where volcanic eruptions may disrupt our systems, cascading us toward global catastrophe. With climate change increasing the frequency and intensity of volcanic eruptions globally and enhancing their impacts, more must be done to accelerate our preparedness for such events.

How to cite: Mani, L., Cassidy, M., Tzachor, A., and Cole, P.: Global societal vulnerability to volcanic eruptions, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-12929, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-12929, 2023.

Recent disasters have demonstrated the challenges faced by our global society because of the increasing complexity of disasters caused by natural hazards. For example, a community hit by a natural hazard while still recovering from the impacts of an earlier hazard faces many different challenges than when it is hit by a single hazard that occurs in isolation. With growing awareness of this complexity and its impact on disaster risk, there has been a push, from scientists as well as international organizations such as the UNDRR, for disaster risk research to account for these complexities. This research has aimed to take an increasingly integrated approach, often bridging across individual hazard types to accomplish a more comprehensive understanding of overall risk.

Incorporating spatiotemporal dynamics of all risk components (i.e., hazards, exposure, and vulnerability) is key to accurately modelling compound and multi-hazard risk events. There is great potential to better capturedynamics between and within risk components by learning from common approaches and methods used in different research communities. For example, recent years have seen a growing attention for research into compound hazards and hazard drivers using methods such as storylines, agent-based models, and system dynamics, all novelties for this field of research. An important, less studied aspect is that of the dynamics of vulnerability. Many of these once-novel methods now applied in compound hazard research have the potential to improve modelling capabilities of other compound risk aspects, such as vulnerability dynamics. This talk will highlight recent developments in assessing the complexities of disaster risk and discuss potential opportunities to further advance our modelling capabilities through multidisciplinary exchanges.

How to cite: de Ruiter, M.: The challenges of risk dynamics and how to assess them, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-1243, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-1243, 2023.

In light of the hysteresis and acceleration of the climate crisis, climate overshoot has only recently been acknowledged as inevitable. As the IPCC belatedly reports, current pledges are not even remotely on track to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels (Anderson 2015, IPCC 2018). Further, no amount of future emissions reductions can suffice to avert climate overshoot. Hence, this presentation critically analyses the proposition that a climate change technofix – namely Negative Emission Technologies (NETs) – is the only potentially efficacious means to avert runaway climate change (Carton 2020, Reynolds 2015).

However, not only is the efficacy of NETs to reduce sufficient greenhouse gas concentrations highly dubious, but any such technofix requires gambling on a host of unknown unknowns – namely, the inexorable complexity of the Earth System, coupled with planetary-scale interventions in the crisis. Therein, this presentation explores the linkages between extreme climate and societal dynamics surrounding risk, offering a theoretical study from the fields of social sciences and humanities as to the non-linearity of cascades and feedbacks between the biosphere and society.

To do so, I put forth a critique of how normative ethics remains anchored in rigid positions of anachronistic risk aversion, given how any attempted climate technofix entails unprecedented realms of risk and uncertainty. Using the frameworks of the Environmental Humanities, and Science & Technology Studies, I critically engage with the risk ethics of imminent climate overshoot, in relation to the interventionist gambles proposed by NETs through Synthetic Biology and Climate Engineering. Given the scale of the unknown unknowns unleashed by the Anthropocene, I present gambling as the most apt analogy for both the absurdity (and denied imminence) of the existential predicament, as well as the sheer improbability that any technofix can be invented in a sufficiently short time and implemented on a sufficiently large scale.

Given the profound social, cultural and ethical dimensions that this entails, discussion will include an overview of outreach activities I have undertaken as a Chief Investigator at the Australian Research Council Centre for Excellence in Synthetic Biology, including the At Risk in the Climate Crisis symposium and podcast series that I co-produced in 2021-22. Overall, in the context of the rapidly diminishing prospect for any efficacious environmental action, the presentation contemplates the unthinkable questions that our current situation demands we ask, and perhaps even try to answer.

How to cite: Wodak, J.: The Non-Linearity of Cascades and Feedbacks Between The Biosphere and Society: Risk Ethics for a Climate Change Technofix, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-3746, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-3746, 2023.

Small island states and jurisdictions face enormous sustainability challenges such as isolation from global markets, tenuous resource availability, heavy reliance on imports to meet basic needs, coastal squeeze, and reduced waste absorption capacity. At the same time, the adverse effects of global environmental change such as global warming, extreme events, and outbreaks of pandemics significantly hinder island economies’ progress towards sustainability, and consistently rank them high on various vulnerability indices. This talk introduces the concept of socio-metabolic risk, defined as systemic risk associated with the availability of critical resources, the integrity of material circulation, and the (in)equitable distribution of derived products and societal services in a socio-ecological system. Drawing on years of socio-metabolic research on islands, I will argue that specific configurations and combinations of material stocks and flows and their ‘resistance to change’ contribute to the system’s proliferation of socio-metabolic risk (SMR). For better or for worse, these influence the system’s ability to consistently and effectively deliver societal services necessary for human survival. Governing SMR would mean governing socio-metabolic flows, and easing resource requirements through green(-blue) infrastructure and nature-based solutions (NBS) to provide crucial societal services. Such interventions will need strategies to reconfigure resource-use patterns and associated services that are sustainable as well as socially equitable.

How to cite: Singh, S.: Socio-metabolic Risks and Tipping Points on Islands, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-17529, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-17529, 2023.

Abrupt sunlight reduction scenarios such as a nuclear winter, an asteroid impact or an eruption of a supervolcano would decimate agriculture as it is practised today. We therefore need resilient food sources for such an event. One promising candidate is seaweed, as it can grow quickly in a wide range of environmental conditions. To explore the feasibility of seaweed in a nuclear winter, we simulate the growth of seaweed on a global scale using an empirical model based on Gracilaria tikvahiae forced by nuclear winter climate simulations. We assess how quickly global seaweed production could be scaled to provide a significant fraction of global food demand. We find seaweed can be grown in tropical oceans, even in nuclear winter. The simulated growth is high enough to allow a scale up to an equivalent of 70 % of the global human caloric demand, while only using a small fraction of the global ocean area. The results also show that the growth of seaweed increases with the severity of the nuclear war, as more nutrients become available due to upwelling. This means that seaweed has the potential to be a viable resilient food source for abrupt sunlight reduction scenarios. 

How to cite: Jehn, F. U., Dingal, F. J., Mill, A., Ilin, E., Harrison, C., Roleda, M. Y., and Denkenberger, D.: Seaweed as a resilient food solution in nuclear winter, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-1871, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-1871, 2023.

As the global water cycle intensifies – with it’s increased variability projected to cause greater storm-events, more extensive flooding and more severe droughts – the obsolescence of current urban infrastructure is made clear, particularly in the face of an ever increasing urban population. To combat these challenges, concepts have been developed across the globe in order to better manage and utilize stormwater run-off; many leaning on the larger concept of green infrastructure, implementing solutions replicative of a more natural water cycle. The simplistic design, low capital costs and flexible application and incorporation into urban spaces has made bio-infiltration swales an excellent choice for urban planners and a center point of recent research. As the base of these systems, the soil substrate lends significantly to a swale’s services of dewatering, pollutant processing, biodiversity promotion and carbon accumulation. By combining urban mineral and organic wastes, we attempt to optimize the synergies between these services. In a microcosm incubation experiment, an extracted deep soil horizon was mixed with green waste compost to form a fertile constructed Technosol. Subsequently, biochars of varying feedstock and pyrolysis processing temperatures were added individually and in combination to determine their impact on water processing properties and nutrient availability. We hypothesized the combinations of biochars will create a structure that maximizes water-substrate interactions while also retaining a larger variety of pollutants due to their differences in chemical composition. The addition of biochar will also minimize run-off of nutrients introduced by the green waste compost, increasing their availability to potential vegetation.

How to cite: Porter, L., Bucka, F., Deeb, M., Paez-Curtidor, N., Egerer, M., and Kögel-Knabner, I.: Constructing multi-functional Technosols for storm-water management: mixing high-carbon organic amendments, a microcosm experiment, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-17016, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-17016, 2023.

Rethinking cities in a more sustainable and integrated way is a key opportunity for successful climate change adaptation and mitigation. Nature-based solutions and green infrastructures can help to safeguard urban nature and biodiversity while providing multiple benefits to reduce climate risks and improving human well-being. Nature-based solutions help to mitigate flood risk by regulating storm-water runoff and peak-flow. This paper investigates the effects of nature-based solutions and green infrastructure networks on pluvial flood risk in Milan metropolitan area in terms of direct economic damage to buildings and population exposed. Results show that extended urban green networks can reduce pluvial flood damages (by up to 60%) and the population exposed (up to 50%). For all analysed rainfall intensities, damages to buildings and share of population exposed decrease as green area coverage increases, with slightly higher risk reduction for lower-intensity events. 25% of additional urban green coverage can halve the expected annual damage and reduce by 40% the expected annual population exposed. The applied methodological framework makes it possible to identify priority-action urban areas and hence inform decision-making processes as for where green solutions are most efficient.

How to cite: Staccione, A., Hrast Essenfelder, A., Bagli, S., and Mysiak, J.: Connected urban green spaces for pluvial flood risk reduction in the Metropolitan area of Milan, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-7906, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-7906, 2023.

High urbanization rate and climate change are the main drivers of urban floods in developing countries. The increase in urban flooding incidents has become a significant threat to cities, which also result into considerable losses of life and the economy. Adapting to the risks of a changing climate and ill-effects of urbanization is imperative for national and local governments. This calls for a functionally and structurally resilient urban drainage infrastructure. Functional resilience is the coping capacity of system against external threats such as urbanization and climate change, whereas structural resilience is the resilience against internal failures such as blockage of inlets or sewers, structural damage of a pipe, bed load sediment deposition, asset aging/decay, and sewer collapse. This work aims to understand the impact of nature-based solutions on urban drainage resilience. Various researchers have identified Low Impact development (LID) practices as a potential solution to enhance drainage systems' resilience. LID can be defined as a land development and retrofit strategy that emphasizes the protection and use of distributed interventions to reduce the volume and rate of stormwater runoff from a developed landscape. In the present study, the green roofs and rain gardens are simulated in a part of Gurugram city of India using the Storm Water Management Model (SWMM) 5.2. Sensitivity analysis is conducted to overcome the problem of a lack of in-depth data to perform model calibration and validation. The simulations were carried out by developing various scenarios for functional and structural resilience assessment. The results indicate that if 25% of potential subcatchments are deployed with LIDs, functional resiliency of the system enhances by 25%, and structural resilience of vulnerable nodes decreases by 17%.  The study reveals that introduction of LIDs aids into enhancing the functional resilience of the system rather than structural resilience. This research provides evidence of LIDs' positive influence on the resilience performance of drainage systems. Overall, the study can help urban planners and drainage management engineers to develop understanding on LIDs role vis-à-vis city's resilience to urban flood problems.

How to cite: Mehta, O., Kansal, M. L., and Bisht, D. S.: Integrating Green and Grey Infrastructure for Resilience Enhancement of Conventional Urban Drainage System and its Evaluation through Modeling, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-137, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-137, 2023.

Emergent dynamic climate risks challenge conventional approaches for climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction. This situation demands new ways of addressing climate risks with integrated solutions. However, little attention has been paid to exploring methodological approaches for combining adaptation measures to reduce climate risks. Still, selecting the appropriate and effective combination of adaptation measures is a challenging task. This research results in a geospatial multi-criteria approach for developing ecosystem-based adaptation packages to face climate change effects and applies this innovative methodology to a case study area in the Puna region in Peru. We started with an in-depth literature analysis combined with a participatory process with local experts to identify and select locally valid adaptation measures for the specific context of the case study area. Building upon that, we developed the overall multi-criteria approach consisting of a matrix-based procedure to evaluate the applicability of relevant adaptation measures and their feasibility of being combined in adaptation packages. We then integrated the multi-criteria analysis into a Geographic Information System using a spatial analysis model to map suitable intervention areas. Next to the methodological innovation, we applied this multi-criteria approach in the case study area to generate a place-based adaptation package for addressing the risk of reduced water provision, with its respective potential intervention sites differentiated by adaptation measure. This methodological approach is novel and considered an affordable support tool that helps practitioners design more robust and effective adaptative interventions. Furthermore, this methodological approach involves shifting the perspective from activities focused on "single adaptations" to "multi-solution" strategic interventions that address climate risks more comprehensively, recognizing the dynamics and complexities of the social-ecological systems. We encourage researchers and practitioners to transfer the methodological approach to other contexts and, with that, accelerate the efficient and targeted implementation of nature-based solutions for climate resilience.

How to cite: Higuera Roa, O., Cotti, D., Aste, N., Bustillos-Ardaya, A., Schneiderbauer, S., Tourino-Soto, I., Roman-Dañobeytia, F., and Walz, Y.: Deriving targeted intervention packages for ecosystem-based adaptation: A geospatial multi-criteria approach for building climate resilience in the Puna region, Peru., EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-6712, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-6712, 2023.

The H2020 project PHUSICOS designs and implements NBS for DRR at demonstrator case sites in rural areas of Norway, Italy, and in the French and Spanish Pyrenees. This presentation covers four locations in the Pyrenees, where NBS to reduce risk from snow avalanches, rockfall and debris flows are implemented. Snow avalanches from the steep slopes of the Capet Forest threaten the French village of Barèges. The NBS here consist of afforestation in the release areas. 5000 trees have been planted in groups of 30-50, protected behind wooden tripods, which also act as protection structures until the trees are large enough to stabilize the snowpack. Rockfall poses a severe hazard at two locations along the important road A-136 / RD-934 between France and Spain. At St. Elena, Spain, the rocks are released by erosion of a slope in a thick till deposit. The implemented NBS consists of vegetated terraces, built up by a dry masonry wall and gabions constructed from wood and filled with the local till. At the location in Artouste, France, rockfalls in the steep slope are released from exposed ledges and from loose blocks in the till surface. The measures here consist of wooden stabilising and retaining structures for each individual ledge or block. These solutions are also tested at newly established laboratory and full-scale test facilities in Spain and France, respectively. The fourth location is near the Spanish village Erill-la-Vall, where debris flows from a >50m thick till deposit pose the threat. Several gullies feed the main debris flow path towards the village during periods of extreme precipitation. The implemented solution is a series of terraces, built up by local rocks and whole-log gabions in the lower parts of the gullies. These will prevent deepening of the erosional base and form increased rugosity in the debris flow paths. The site has been monitored during the last 15 years. In-situ borehole (piezometer) data shows two processes: a deep-seated (15-20 m) failure level, which reacts up to two weeks after a period of heavy rain, and shallow erosion, which reacts almost immediately as a direct response to heavy precipitation. The implemented NBS are primarily to mitigate against the latter process.

The NBS described here all have large upscaling potential, as there are numerous locations in the Pyrenees and elsewhere with similar problems. Terracing and afforestation for slope stabilization is not a new concept but is here re-vitalized in cooperation with stakeholders through Living-Lab processes. These processes have also helped overcoming challenges related to land ownership issues and permissions to operate, e.g., in national parks, which have caused implementation delays. Monitoring of the implemented measures, focused on both the resilience aspect and, not the least, the NBS' co-benefits will be important for building up an evidence-base for the functionality of NBS for DRR.

How to cite: Solheim, A., Vergès, D., Fabregas, S., Lespine, L., Räimät, C., Garcia, E., Oen, A., Kalsnes, B., and Capobianco, V.: NBS implemented in the Pyrenees during the PHUSICOS project, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-5754, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-5754, 2023.

A consensus is emerging that restoring the fire-adapted forest ecology through nature-based solutions (NBS), such as prioritizing fire-resistant vegetation, promoting less fire-prone forests, enabling grazing by herbivores in areas facing land abandonment, prescribed burns, and restricted or risk-adapted development in wildlands, can reduce the risk of extreme wildfires. This paradigm shift away from fire suppression towards a fire loss-prevention strategy is urgently needed. The question is whether risk financing strategies, especially insurance, can untap the potential for promoting NBS, for example, by providing protection in case of damages from livestock grazing or prescribed burns, or by giving discounts to forest owners and homeowners that pursue ecological fire-prevention measures. Additionally, insurers can provide (parametric) policies that repair ecological damage, for example, for coral reefs after extreme storms, or policies that transfer the construction or liability risk of NBS. Since wildfire mitigation is to a large extent collective, another potential policy option to support NBS is community-based insurance strategies. This presentation will explore the opportunities and constraints for public and private insurers to support NBS for wildfire risk management. It reflects on-going research in three recently funded Horizon Europe projects: (Cross sector dialogue for wildfire risk management (FireLogue), Building a safe haven for climate extremes (The HuT), and Nature for insurance and insurance for nature (NATURANCE).

How to cite: Bayer, J., Bacciu, V., Plana, E., Sousa, L., Surminski, S., and Deubelli-Hwang, T.: Nature-based solutions for wildfire risk management: the role of insurance, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-9392, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-9392, 2023.

Sitting at the intersection of knowledge production and project implementation, our work as conservation finance project developers leverages economic and other benefits of environmental restoration to attract new and diverse funding sources for nature-based solutions (NBS). Our work supports project activities ranging from variable density thinning and prescribed burning to low-tech and process-based riparian restoration. In our experience, NBS presents a powerful, cost-effective opportunity to create scaled improvements in ecosystem function. However, funding NBS projects can be challenging, as some NBS outcomes are only achieved through large-scale landscape restoration, which is expensive, or are realized gradually over a period of time following restoration activities. Conservation finance is one tool that can catalyze meaningful NBS work at scale by providing the necessary upfront capital for projects while contracting funding commitments based on outcomes over time. Using several examples of successful NBS projects, we present a process-based, multiple-benefit framework to demonstrate how NBS can be leveraged to increase funds and enable financing. This framework is grounded in western U.S. forest management to address catastrophic wildfire, but can be applied in other regions and for other types of restoration activities. This approach addresses the logistical, governance, and sociocultural challenges we have encountered to leveraging NBS within a conservation finance framework. We also propose future avenues of research to help increase investment based on NBS. These include formalizing metrics for measuring and monitoring of different NBS activities, managing the uncertainty and expectations around outcomes of NBS projects, and incorporating the future impacts of climate change into NBS models and planning. By describing this work in a U.S. context, we hope to catalyze a discussion about how the needs and opportunities identified in our projects can inform work in Europe and vice versa.

How to cite: Maurer, T., Seipp, K., Elias, M., and Saksa, P.: A multiple-benefit framework for implementing nature-based solutions using conservation finance, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-4599, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-4599, 2023.