Improving climate resilience: the benefits of a climate risk-specific ontology
A climate-specific ontology that includes socio-economic components is not just an academic exercise. It is a practical tool that enables us to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to the challenges posed by climate change.
To understand the impacts of climate change, you need a comprehensive and rigorous framework. This framework should capture the complexity and interdependencies of the various factors involved. A climate-specific ontology is a necessary tool for this purpose. It offers a structured approach to categorizing and establishing relationships between various elements of climate data, weather events, environmental conditions, and socio-economic factors. This ontology helps to understand how these components are interconnected and how they interact to create complex risks.
Let's start with a classification of climate-related hazards commonly used for climate risk assessment.
Climate-related hazards
Chronic Risk
Chronic risks in the context of climate-related hazards refer to risks that manifest themselves gradually over time as a result of sustained changes in climate patterns. These are typically not single, discrete events, but ongoing trends that accumulate or intensify over time, often with lasting impacts on ecosystems, infrastructure, and communities.
| Temperature-related | Wind-related | Water-related | Solid mass-related |
|---|---|---|---|
| Changing temperature (air, freshwater, marine water) | Changing wind patterns | Changing precipitation patterns and types (rain, hail, snow/ice) | Coastal erosion |
| Heat stress | Precipitation or hydrological variability | Soil degradation | |
| Temperature variability | Ocean acidification | Soil erosion | |
| Permafrost thawing | Saline intrusion | Solifluction | |
| Sea level rise | |||
| Water stress |
Acute risks
Acute climate-related risks are those that result from extreme weather events or sudden environmental changes. Unlike chronic risks, which develop gradually over time, acute risks are characterized by their immediacy and intensity. They often occur with little warning and can cause immediate and severe damage to infrastructure, ecosystems and communities.
| Temperature-related | Wind-related | Water-related | Solid mass-related |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heat wave | Cyclone, hurricane, typhoon | Drought | Avalanche |
| Cold wave/frost | Storm (including blizzards, dust and sand-storms) | Heavy precipitation (rain, hail, snow/ice) | Landslide |
| Wildfire | Tornado | Flood (coastal, fluvial, pluvial, ground water) | Subsidence |
| Glacial lake outburst |
Flooding risks
Now if we want to get a better understanding of how these hazards translate into more frequent and more intense flooding risks, we need to relate climate and environmental factors specifically to different types of flooding.
By mapping out these relationships, predictive models can more accurately forecast the likelihood and severity of flooding events. This allows for better preparedness and response strategies.
The chart above illustrates the correlation between various types of flooding, weather events, factors contributing to climate change, and ecosystem conditions.
- Weather Events:
- Extreme rainfall (short duration) has a significant impact on tidal, coastal storm surge, flash, and fluvial flooding.
- Prolonged rainfall (long duration) affects coastal storm surge, flash, fluvial, and early season runoff flooding.
- Windstorms contribute to coastal storm surge flooding.
- Heavy snowfall or sudden thaw influences flash and early season runoff flooding.
- Waves are a factor in coastal storm surge flooding.
- Ice and snow melt contribute to early season runoff flooding.
- Climate Change:
- Sea level rise impacts tidal and coastal storm surge flooding.
- Ecosystems:
- Loss of natural barriers significantly affects tidal, coastal storm surge, and flash flooding.
This analysis communicates the multifaceted nature of flooding risks and highlights the importance of considering a wide range of factors in flood management and mitigation efforts.
Infrastructure risk assessment
Finally, the impact of flooding on a community is not determined solely by the environmental event itself. Socio-economic factors, such as the quality of infrastructure, the preparedness of emergency services, public health capacity, and the resilience of the local economy, also play a crucial role.
Assessing and explaining the vulnerability of critical infrastructure to flooding involves understanding how each type of infrastructure interacts with water and how essential services might be disrupted during a flood event.
Critical infrastructure risk assessment
Critical infrastructure risk assessment is the cornerstone of climate risk analysis due to the fundamental role that infrastructure plays in the functioning of the society, economic stability and public safety. This assessment is essential due to the interconnectivity of infrastructure systems and the cascading effects that can result from their failure during climate-related events.
Transportation Infrastructure
Transportation infrastructure is often the first to be affected in a flood, hindering emergency response and evacuation efforts, and creating supply chain disruptions. This infrastructure is highly vulnerable to flooding as roads can become impassable, bridges may suffer structural damage from strong currents or debris, and tunnels can flood rapidly with little warning.
Martial Humblot
Energy Infrastructure
Energy infrastructure is essential for maintaining communications, lighting, heating/cooling, and the operation of critical facilities. A disruption in power supply can have cascading effects on other critical infrastructure and severely impact the ability to respond to and recover from a climate event. Energy generation facilities, substations, and transmission lines are at risk of flooding, which can lead to power outages.
Water and Wastewater Infrastructure
Water treatment facilities are critical to providing safe drinking water. Storm surges and flooding can contaminate water supplies, making it essential to protect these assets. Similar to water treatment plants, wastewater facilities are vital to public health. These facilities are often located near water bodies for operational reasons, which puts them at risk of flooding. Contamination and service disruption are significant concerns.
Telecommunications Networks
Telecommunication services provide critical communications between first responders, residents, and the outside world during a disaster. Reliable communication is also vital for maintaining social and economic activities during disasters. Flooding can disrupt these services by damaging physical infrastructure.
At this level, we have developed the ability to create preliminary scoring models based on the vulnerability analysis of each infrastructure component.
| Component | Infrastructure Type | Structural Damage | Service Disruption | Access Impediment | Contamination Risk | Recovery Difficulty | Overall Vulnerability |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subway station A | Transportation | High | Moderate | High | Low | High | High |
| Substation AE | Energy | Moderate | High | Moderate | Low | Moderate | Moderate |
| Hospital H | Emergency Services | Low | High | High | Low | High | High |
| Tank T | Water and Wastewater | Moderate | High | Low | High | High | High |
| Data center D | Telecommunications | Moderate | Moderate | Low | Low | Moderate | Moderate |
The matrix above serves as a starting point for discussion and further analysis. By assessing components individually, a tiered response plan can be developed to address the most critical vulnerabilities first. This approach also allows for a more effective allocation of resources, focusing efforts where they can have the greatest impact on overall system resilience.
By using TranzAI's GIS backend and spatial queries to calculate H3 cell scores, you can also identify the most vulnerable areas and gain a better understanding of the implications of flooding for service continuity and community resilience. This will help optimize long-term planning for climate resilience.
Martial Humblot
TranzAI's unique value proposition is based on its dedicated climate-risk specific ontology and feature store, as well as direct access to data sources that provide detailed infrastructure characteristics and location. This powerful combination enables data scientists to achieve a high level of accuracy and insight when analyzing the potential impact of climate events.
A climate-risk specific ontology and feature store provides a structured framework that categorizes and stores relevant data attributes and relationships for comprehensive analysis. This process is essential for improving the comprehension and evaluation of climate risks, especially those associated with flooding, heat waves, and other climate-related hazards. It improves our ability to assess, predict, and mitigate the impacts of climate change.
Data structured and categorized to reflect the complex interdependencies and characteristics of different socio-economic components provides decision-makers with actionable insights.
