Climate and non-climate risk assessment framework for built environment assets

There is an urgency of planning, designing and retrofitting the Built Environment in order to be adaptable to present and future risks induced by climatic and non-climatic hazards. The assessment of risk and resilience in the Built Environment requires understanding the inseparable relationship between physical spaces and their users across different scales. Key Performance Indicators provide a quantitative approach to assessing risk and resilience, enabling a systematic evaluation of diverse factors within the Built Environment. The MULTICLIMACT Horizon Europe project (GA 101123538) offers innovative solutions across three scales to address these challenges: building, urban, and territorial. Through the development of design practices, materials, technologies, and digital solutions, the project strengthens construction resilience, preparedness, and responsiveness to disruptive events, thereby improving safety and quality of life. Central to this objective is the development of a set of quantitative Key Performance Indicators to assess the level of risk and resilience of AS IS asset condition and future TO BE possible scenarios in the Built Environment. The study, developed within MULTICLIMACT, identifies key factors that influence risk and resilience, including people, buildings, infrastructure, cultural heritage, urban and territorial systems under climate-related and non-climate-related hazards, such as earthquakes. Rooted in international guidelines and standards, and validated through engagement with experts in the Built Environment, the quantitative indicators facilitate comprehensive assessments across various scales, users, and systems to inform policies, strategies, actions, solutions and projects. Key contributions include the identification of quantitative Key Performance Indicators for risk factors—hazard, exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity—and resilience qualities such as robustness, rapidity, resourcefulness, and redundancy. The study also considers resilience dimensions, including environmental, economic, physical, digital, human, and well-being aspects. These indicators address critical gaps in existing frameworks, offering actionable insights for policymakers, designers, and practitioners to evaluate current conditions and envision future scenarios for new developments or regeneration projects. The findings emphasize the importance of holistic approaches that integrate human well-being, environmental sustainability, and cultural preservation into resilience planning and design. This work provides essential tools for quantifying and enhancing resilience, supporting evidence-based decision-making to reduce the level of risks and increase the level of resilience to escalating climatic and non-climatic hazards.