Design of a comprehensive approach to climate and climate-related risk information to policy makers and the general public (D4.5)

The main objective of the SOCLIMPACT project is to assess the potential impacts of climate change on specific blue economy sectors of European islands and archipelagos, and to estimate the projected consequences for the local economies, through the analysis of inter-sectorial relations. To this purpose, two different and complementary modeling pathways have been designed:

• in Work Package 4 (WP4), for each selected island and for each economic sector, climate change-induced risks are assessed through the evaluation of individual risk components (i.e. hazard, exposure and vulnerability), in order to allow the inter- comparison of islands as to the present and future climatic shocks they are liable to face, as to the dimension and importance of the exposed natural and socio- economic subsystems, and as to their preparedness to counteract adverse conditions, by implementing effective protection and adaptation measures, as well as by translating technological acquisitions and innovative business models into operational innovation for local industries;

• in WP5 and WP6, the economic value of climate-change-induced impacts on specific sectors of the blue economy is estimated for selected islands, together with its overall relevance for the island’s economy, accounting for variations in both the supply and the demand parameters.

Despite the two approaches being largely independent, the first is anyway propaedeutic to the second, as it provides important points for reflection, and helps to correctly shape the problem when estimating the impacts of climate change on purely economic variables, such as the gross added value and the rate of employment.

Among the sectors of relevance to insular economies that are exposed to climate change, SOCLIMPACT selected Maritime Transport, Tourism, Energy and Aquaculture for its sector-specific analysis of climate-change-related impacts in EU islands, with the aim of helping to fill in some of the knowledge gaps that still hinder the design of custom-tailored adaptation options and the emergence of fast growth opportunities. To this end, this document presents the results of the risk assessment exercise conducted for the islands that participated in the project, as a preliminary step towards the subsequent evaluation of the economic implications of climate change for their economies.