The RESIN climate change adaptation project and its simple modeling approach for risk-oriented vulnerability assessment

Urban population centers are especially vulnerable to extreme weather events and climate change. Local decision makers demand standardized processes, methods, and tools enabling them to design and implement climate adaptation strategies for their specific contexts. The project Climate Resilient Cities and Infrastructures RESIN aims at providing such a set of methods and tools; it utilizes the impact chain modeling approach to capture and represent cause-effect relationships underlying risks and vulnerabilities in urban population centers, enabling a systematic analysis and evaluation. Highlighting on a number of concepts, such as hazard, exposure, stressors, coping capacity, and vulnerability, these impact chains constitute the base for further quantitative modeling steps.