The CLIMAAX handbook - an online tool for regional climate risk assessments

Future climate change is likely to cause an increase in climate-related risks across all regions and sectors of society. Quantification and a better understanding of how to adapt to changes are crucial for regions and municipalities to be able to cope with current and future climate risks. However, in many areas of Europe, the capability to perform multi-hazard climate risk assessments is limited due to a lack of resources and knowledge. The EU Horizon Europe project CLIMAAX (CLIMAte risk and vulnerability Assessment framework and toolboX) addresses this by providing financial, analytical and practical support to regions looking to improve their regional Climate Risk Assessment (CRA) and management plans. The project has developed a comprehensive online Handbook comprising a harmonised CRA framework and practical workflows to quantify climate risks from floods, heavy rainfall, drought, extreme heat, wildfire, windstorms and snow. 

The heart of the CLIMAAX Handbook is a Jupyter ecosystem. The Handbook website is implemented as a JupyterBook and risk workflows as Jupyter notebooks, executable in a collaborative JupyterHub cloud environment. All tools are open-source and available for anyone to use. The project participants also have a wide range of support resources available, including video tutorials, documentation, drop-in sessions, and online support, all to create a community of practice where experiences are shared between the participants.

The project currently supports 69 European regions in performing CRAs in separate steps. The first step is screening the most critical climate risks and how they might affect each region, as well as identifying the most important stakeholders and their capability to adapt to climate change. The second step is to conduct more detailed assessments, bringing in local data on hazard, vulnerability and exposure. The final step is to provide an adaptation plan to mitigate the risks for the future. This presentation will summarise the results of the first screening of risks across the European regions and provide lessons learned from implementing the framework and workflows.