Prioritise risks and improve adaptation strategies in the Veneto coast through the application of a custom AI tool

Climate change has emerged as one of the most severe global challenges of our time, with rising temperatures and unprecedented shifts in climate patterns. Coastal areas are particularly vulnerable, facing compounded impacts from sea-level rise and increasingly frequent extreme weather events, demanding urgent need for proactive and comprehensive adaptation measures to protect coastal regions, recently defined as sentinels of climate change.

A paradigm shift towards a multi-hazard risk perspective is increasingly recognised as essential in risk assessment and management. Moreover, Artificial Intelligence (AI) have emerged as promising tools to aid decision-making processes in coastal risk management and climate change adaptation. This study introduces COAST-AId, a custom Large Language Model designed to facilitate the analysis and synthesis of diverse information relevant for climate risk assessment and management along the Veneto coast. The tool facilitates the application of the risk assessment framework proposed in the European Climate Risk Assessment analysing the specific climate risk challenges of this region. The framework combines three key dimensions – i.e., risk identification, risk analysis, policy analysis – to prioritise risks and define urgent actions. The application of the COAST-AId tool was performed in close cooperation with local stakeholders involved in the MYRIAD-EU project where a systemic multi-hazard risk framework is considered to support the development of disaster risk management and climate adaptation pathways.

The tool's performance was evaluated by stakeholders, highlighting critical risks in the Veneto coastal as well as opportunities for enhancing coastal resilience and improving risk reduction and adaptation strategies at the regional to local scale.