95709 - Climate Change Adaptation

Learning outcomes

Students of this course will learn solutions to climate change adaptation and their technical design, by focusing on extreme weather events - in particular floods and droughts - low carbon management of climate hazards, and innovative strategies and interventions for the mitigation of climate change impact. Risk based adaptation design and decision theory will be considered as an effective and transparent means to evaluate competitive solutions and assign priorities, while uncertainty assessment will provide the basis for a pragmatic design. The joint analysis and modeling of solutions and societal systems will be the driving concept of the course, with an evolving educational path that will focus on the most recent research developments and will make use of open access information.

Course contents

The course focuses on sustainable solutions for adapting to the current or expected effects of climate change, with a particular emphasis on water-related impacts and disasters.

It is highly multidisciplinary and designed for a broad audience, aiming to expand beyond engineering with an innovative vision.

The instructor will encourage extensive interaction with students. For example, students will have the optional opportunity to deliver brief presentations to the class, and contribute to the discussion. Students are also encouraged to propose additional ideas for interaction.

Tutorial documents will be provided to the students.

The course includes the following topics:

1. Introduction to the climate change problem
2. The climate system
3. Climate change processes
4. Identifying climate change impacts from data
5. Models for estimating climate change impacts
6. Climate change impacts on the water cycle
7. Risk-based adaptation design
8. Solutions for climate change adaptation

Part of the course will be delivered online.

Readings/Bibliography

The instructor will provide documents to support the learning process, which will be made available to students.

Teaching methods

The course is primarily taught through lectures, with some dedicated time for data analysis and exploring solutions for climate change adaptation.

Assessment methods

Student performance will be assessed through a quiz consisting of 30 multiple-choice questions, with penalties for incorrect answers. The quiz will last 30 minutes.

The questions will cover material discussed in the lectures, including short exercises. To pass the exam, students must demonstrate understanding of the theoretical principles and analytical derivations taught during the lectures. The instructor will explicitly highlight the key topics students need to understand in order to pass the exam. A distinction (laude) will be awarded to students who show excellent preparation and demonstrate an in-depth, personal analysis of the subject matter.

Teaching tools

The instructor will make presentation materials available to students, along with scientific papers and summaries of recent research findings distributed during the lectures.

Lectures will be delivered either in-person or online, depending on the format.

Office hours

See the website of Guenter Bloeschl