Geographic Information Systems for assessment of climate change

Learning Outcomes:

• Familiarization with the use of remote sensing data for global change detection.
• Familiarization with processing of climate scenarios.
• Development of skills through the application of GIS, to determine and model land use changes and scenario development.

General Skills:

• Understanding the meaning of natural and human induced climate changes and their impacts on natural and human systems and ecosystems.
• Development of the skills to determine risk factors that are related to exposure and vulnerability to climate changes.
• Development of skills to determine land use changes.
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Course Outline v.2 14-5-2021
• Development of skills to design mitigation measures at minimum cost.

Course Content:

1. Introduction to climate changes, natural and man induced climate changes.
2. IPCC climate scenarios – ensemble data – bias correction methods.
3. Determination of global changes
4. Observed and anticipated effects of climate change on natural and human environment and on ecosystems: Droughts, storm surges, sea level rise, sea waves, effects on coastal areas, landslides, coast erosion, desertification, soil water content changes, fires.
5. Observed and anticipated effects of climate change on human systems: impacts on urban areas, infrastructures, transportation, tourism, crop production.
6. Observed and expected land use changes – Land use change modeling.
7. Mitigation and adaptation: risk management and assessment through adaptation measures. Mitigation versus adaptation. Sustainable ecosystem services. The role of technology on mitigation measures, examination of alternatives and decision making.
8. Bioclimatic variables – Access WORLDCLIM data sets
9. Global Ice sheet changes – the GRACE mission. Access and analysis of GRACE Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheet data sets
10. Land Surface Temperature Trend assessment: Access and analysis on MODIS LST datasets
11. Determination of vegetation changes: Access and analysis of MODIS NDVI datasets
12. Land use changes determination, Land use change modeling – use of explanatory variables
13. Development of REDD scenario

Suggested Bibliography:  

• IPCC. (2014). Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Core Writing Team, Pachauri , R.K. Meyer, L.A. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004 https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/
• Working Group I Report Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/ (https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004) .
• Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/
• Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg3/ .
• SOER 2015 — The European environment — state and outlook 2015 https://www.eea.europa.eu/soer-2015/synthesis/to-eyropaiko-periballon-2014-katastasiperiballon-2014-katastasi) .
• Geographic information Science. PAUL A. LONGLEY, MICHAEL F. GOODCHILD, DAVID J. MAGUIRE, DAVID W. RHIND