TRANSCLIMA: addressing the challenge of unprecedented cyclones

Speaker: Itxaso Oderiz Martinez, IHCantabria

Between 1998 and 2017, tropical cyclones (TCs) caused 233,000 deaths, affected approximately 726 million people globally (Kam et al., 2024).

Adaptation to TCs is impregnated with uncertainty in a global context where coastal adaptation efforts are imbalanced distributed (Magnan et al., 2023). There is a lack of local adaptation information specifically related to TCs, with even greater challenges for unprecedented hazards. TRANSCLIMA is an EU project aiming to address the challenges of long-term cyclone projection and their adaption. Several products are expected to contribute to these efforts.

A global high-resolution risk assessment for TCs: Developed at the fourth administration level, this assessment proposes a classification in TC regions of coastal areas based on projected changes degrees of TC frequency, intensity and unprecedented hazards, as well as exposed populations and TC-related adaptive capacity.

A Fast predictive tool for cyclones:  Designed to predict hazards induced by cyclones globally at global scale and track spatial temporal uncertainty.

An adaption guide for tailored measures for each TC regions: Providing granular, subnational-level information to enhance global adaptation responses.

This seminar will provide an overview of the TRANSLCIMA project, with a particular focus on the first product: ‘A global high-resolution risk assessment for TCs’.

Bio: Dr. Odériz is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow in the Climate Risks, Adaptation, and Resilience Group at IHCantabria. Her current work focuses on coastal adaptation to climate change, aiming to achieve comprehensive global-scale adaptation by integrating multi-scale processes and focusing on unprecedented hazards. She holds a degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Cantabria. She has a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Engineering, both with honours, from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Throughout her career, she has studied several spatial scales, from implementing nature-based solutions at the local level to analysing coastal hazards on a global scale, incorporating natural variability and climate change. During her Ph.D., she assessed the impact of natural variability and climate change on global wave climate. She was a visiting researcher at the Disaster Prevention Research Institute at Kyoto University, where she focused on wave climate projections under climate change scenarios. Additionally, she was awarded a Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral fellowship in 2021, during this period she focused on developing long-term global climate risks assessment. Her research has resulted in in 19 high-impact papers, including one in Nature Climate Change.