The number of climate-related disasters has progressively increased in the last two decades and this trend will drastically exacerbate in the medium- and long-term horizons according to climate change projections. In this framework, through a multi-disciplinary team and a strong background acquired in recent projects, ICARIA aims to promote the use of asset-level modeling to achieve a better understanding of climate related tangible direct and indirect impacts on critical assets due to complex, cascading, and compound disasters. Furthermore, it takes into account the related risk reduction provided by suitable, sustainable, and cost-effective adaptation solutions. ICARIA focuses on both (i) critical assets and services that were not designed for potential climate change-related impacts that can increase the unplanned outages and failures, and (ii) on housing, natural areas, and population. Cutting edge methods regarding climate scenario building, asset-level-coupled models, and multi-risk assessment approaches will be implemented and replicated in three EU regions to understand how future climate scenarios might affect critical assets and to provide decision-making support tools to private and public risk owners to assess the costs and benefits of various adaptation solutions.

Urban underground infrastructures are highly vulnerable to intense rainfall events, particularly access stairs, where preferential runoff paths and the most probable evacuation routes can conflict. This study presents a pluvial flood hazard assessment for underground access stairs in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area Metro network. It integrates the EU ICARIA project modeling framework and the hazard assessment criteria based on hydraulic parameters identified by the Spanish national research project FAVOUR. Both current and future climate change rainfall scenarios are considered. The results showed that out of 415 underground access points, 27 face a high risk of floods, while 35 more have potentially high-risk conditions. These figures could rise to 38 (40% increase) and 47 (74% increase) respectively by the end of the century since climate change is projected to increase rainfall intensity and frequency. By quantifying hazard levels across the network, this study allows the identification of points of the infrastructure where hazard conditions can be more critical. Furthermore, the results presented could potentially support targeted adaptation strategies such as entrance retrofitting, improved drainage design, and emergency planning to develop resilient and sustainable cities. The proposed methodology demonstrates how ICARIA’s modeling framework can effectively evaluate and anticipate flood hazards in complex urban environments at the asset level.

Pluvial floods can cause severe socio-economic impacts on coastal urban areas like the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona. This study combined the development of high-resolution flood maps, based on a large-scale coupled 1D/2D model and empirical functions, to quantify direct economic damage to buildings and determine risk to pedestrians and vehicles. Importantly, the flood model included a network of 36 municipalities and covered 636 km². Three scenarios were considered: single-hazard (extreme precipitation), multi-hazard (coincident extreme precipitation and storm surge), and adaptation (implementation of resilience measures). In total, 20 rain events were applied for each scenario: 5 were historic design storms, while 15 considered the effect of climate change (60 simulations in total). By the end of the century, results show potential increases in expected annual damage of up to 36%, from €139.8 M to €190.3 M. Risk for pedestrians could increase by 25% (494 ha to 620 ha) and for vehicles by 26% (59 km to 75 km) in the T10 single-hazard scenario. In the multi-hazard case, the socio-economic impacts are approximately 5% higher, while the adaptation simulations considering sustainable urban drainage systems show reductions between 6 and 18%. The metropolitan results were compared and validated with a previous assessment done in the City of Barcelona. Based on these results, urban planners, emergency responders, and public administrations can develop effective adaptation measures based on cost–benefit analyses for current and future climate scenarios. Compared to previous studies, this approach adapts existing urban-scale methodologies to regional-scale flood risk assessment.

1D/2D coupled models are a valuable tool for urban flood modelling. However, the high data requirements to characterise the sewer network in the area of study often limit their applicability. This paper proposes a methodology to fill this data gap in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, where a regional‐scale flooding model is being developed in the scope of Project ICARIA ( https://www.icaria‐project.eu/ ). It consists of a process that allows generating synthetic sewer networks at a municipal level. Its data requirements are geographic information, usually available in open‐source repositories, and a set of parameters to define the geometric characteristics of the sewer elements. This approach proposes to define such parameters based on already available information of neighbouring municipalities with similar geography and demography. The methodology was implemented in Sant Feliu de Llobregat (Barcelona, Spain), where a synthetic sewer network was generated. The network of three other municipalities was taken as a reference given their similarity to the area of study. In addition, the actual sewer network of Sant Feliu was available for this study. Both networks, real and synthetic, were used in two 1D/2D coupled models developed with the software Infoworks Ultimate (v 2025.1). The model, based on the actual sewer, was considered as the benchmark to evaluate the validity of the synthetic one. Results indicate a satisfactory degree of coincidence between the models, in terms of the network layout, characteristics, extent and location of the flooded areas for four different rain scenarios. Despite its intrinsic assumptions and limitations, this methodology has proved to be a valid alternative to address this data gap when performing preliminary flood assessments in urban areas with meshed and fully gravity‐driven drainage networks.

The electrical system is a crucial infrastructure of modern society. It provides the energy needed for society to continue its development. However, this critical infrastructure is increasingly threatened by the extreme weather events driven by the escalating climate crisis, posing significant challenges to sustainable development and energy security. Therefore, it is important to conduct comprehensive risk analyses of the electrical system to prepare for future challenges. This paper presents an electrical risk assessment conducted within the European project ICARIA, aiming to evaluate the effects of global climate change on critical infrastructure resilience. The study improves on the first risk assessment conducted, evaluating the electrical system’s vulnerability to flooding events, such as heavy rains or rising sea levels, in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona. A key contribution to this research is the integration of direct impact assessments and cascading effect analyses, which identify how localised failures in electrical assets can spread throughout the system, potentially leading to a blackout. The research focuses on modelling various flood projections, using extreme weather scenarios and return periods ranging from 1 to 100 years. These projections are employed to evaluate the risk assessment methodology and quantify potential impacts on the electrical grid, including Expected Annual Damage (EAD) and Energy Not Supplied Cost (ENSC). The results aim to provide policymakers and grid operators with valuable insights, enabling the development of data-driven adaptation strategies and climate-resilient infrastructure planning to mitigate the risks posed by extreme weather events.