Overview

This work has been carried out primarily through the REACHOUT project, which aims to advance user orientated climate services and support the implementation of the European Green Deal. A key element of this work was the tailoring of climate services and tools to the needs of the seven city hubs involved in the project. After discussions with city stakeholders, representatives from Cork City, Ireland, Logroño, Spain and Milan, Italy all expressed an interest in co-developing the SVI tool to support wider climate justice priorities in their cities. Following the interest of the SVI tool in these cities, the opportunity to utilise it was also extended more widely to other local and regional authorities through the Directed and TALX2 projects, where the authors are currently engaged in climate impacts and adaptation research with local authorities and communities. The Directed project aims to reduce vulnerability to extreme weather events and foster disaster-resilient European societies, with four real-world labs located across Europe, including one in Rimini, Italy, whose city representatives wished to better understand the climate risk to specific vulnerable populations. The TALX2 project aims to support and progress just climate adaptation activities on the island of Ireland using place-based partnerships and has established living labs and a cross-border programme of activities to support this. As a part of this work, representatives of Derry City and Strabane District Council and Belfast City Council have expressed an interest in developing the SVI for the entire region of Northern Ireland to support equitable adaptation action here. This study builds on the method proposed by Fitton et al. (2021), which was based upon the methodologies of Kazmierczak et al (2015), Lindley & O’Neil, and Lindley et al. and focused on social vulnerability to environmental hazards in Ireland.