PEOPLEKathrin Renner

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Kathrin Renner

Researcher
Center for Climate Change and Transformation

T +39 0471 055 394

kathrin.renner@eurac.edu

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7757-799X

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About

Climate risk assessment
Spatial analysis and mapping
Exposure modelling
Field work

Short bio

Kathrin Renner is a Researcher in the Climate and Disaster Risk Unit at the Eurac Research Centre for Climate Change and Transformation. She specialises in the spatial assessment of climate risks, ecosystem resilience, and vulnerability. With over 20 years of experience in geospatial data analysis, Kathrin has contributed to a range of international and regional projects, including climate risk assessments in Tajikistan, Burundi, and the MENA region on behalf of GIZ, as well as the Climate Impact and Vulnerability Assessment for Germany 2021 for the German Environment Agency (UBA).

Kathrin holds degrees in Geography from Leipzig University and Geographical Information Science from University College London. Before joining Eurac Research, she worked in GIS roles for an international engineering consultancy and provided information management support in humanitarian crises with a UK-based charity.

Her research focuses on the spatial mapping of climate risks, exposure and vulnerabilities, with the aim of supporting adaptation planning and decision-making at regional and international scales. She is particularly interested in developing and applying geospatial methods to assess climate impacts on ecosystems, livelihoods, and infrastructure, contributing to more targeted and effective risk reduction and resilience strategies.

Links to external profiles

ResearchGate

Scientific Publications

Journal article2025

Integrated risk analyses as part of national climate risk assessments: lessons learnt from the climate risk assessment of Germany

Kahlenborn W, Voss M, Porst L, Zebisch M, Renner K, Schauser I

Kathrin Renner, Marc Zebisch

Project: Climate Impact and Risk Assessment Germany 2021

Purpose

Climate risk assessments (CRAs) become more and more necessary to prepare and prioritise adaptation action. On a policy level, the results of CRAs offer the foundation for national adaptation strategies. However, existing CRAs oftentimes do not exploit their full potential by means of an integrated assessment, i.e. to illustrate the complexity of cascading risks, provide cross-sectoral results, integrate adaptive capacity and demonstrate spatial patterns. This paper seeks to fill this gap by dissecting integrated assessment approaches of national CRAs.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper focuses on the integrated analyses of the results of CRAs. Based on a review of selected national, multi-sectoral CRAs, the authors explore the application of such analyses. Additionally, drawing on the latest climate impact and risk assessment for Germany, the authors highlight latest approaches and their implications.

Findings

The authors show that even though progress in establishing integrated assessment methods has been made, no common framework exists so far and only few national CRAs include extensive integrated analyses. Nevertheless, the German example demonstrates that integrated analyses can provide a comprehensive overview over risk dynamics, (spatial) patterns and needs for action thus providing practical advice for decision-making on a national adaptation policy level.

Originality/value

While it is common knowledge that CRAs in general provide better results, if the models applied are integrated (i.e. combining climate, geo-physical, economic, etc. factors), little attention has been given to the integrated analyses of their results. This paper provides valuable new insight on this aspect which will become far more important in the future.

DOI Source

DOI: 10.1108/IJCCSM-10-2023-0128

Report2025

Klimarisiken und Anpassung - Wege zu einem klimaresilienten Südtirol

Zebisch M, Pedoth L, Pörnbacher M, Renner K, Fritsch U, Alberton M, Bertoldi G, Bisignano J,

Chiara Pellegrini, Mariachiara Alberton, Giacomo Bertoldi, Federica Maino, Uta Fritsch, Andreas Hilpold, Andrea Omizzolo, Wolfram Sparber, Nikolaus Obojes, Lydia Pedoth, Kathrin Renner, Marc Zebisch, Alice Crespi, Philipp Corradini, Giacomo Strapazzon, Chiara Crippa, Christian Hoffmann, Matteo Prina, Giulia Roveri

Project: Climate Change Adaptation Strategy South Tyrol, 5a/2026 Environmental policy and law in multilevel systems, Eco-Hydrology of alpine watersheds

Der Bericht „Klimarisiken und Anpassung – Wege zu einem klimaresilienten Südtirol“ untersucht die möglichen Klimafolgen und Klimarisiken sowie deren Ursachen für Südtirol für neun Sektoren und schlägt Strategien und Maßnahmenbündel für eine notwendige Klimaanpassung vor. Er soll die Klimaanpassungsstrategie des Landes vorbereiten sowie informieren und setzt daher die Schwerpunkte auf Klimarisiken, die weite Teile Südtirols oder mehrere Systeme, Sektoren oder Handlungsfelder gleichzeitig betreffen und sich kaskadenartig ausbreiten. Außerdem fokussiert diese Studie auf Anpassungsstrategien und Maßnahmen (wie z.B. Politikinstrumente), die auf der Ebene der Provinz eingeführt und umgesetzt werden sollten, und weniger auf technische Maßnahmen in einzelnen Handlungsfeldern.

DOI Source

DOI: 10.57749/4ehb-1753

Report2025

Rischi climatici e adattamento - Verso un Alto Adige resiliente al clima

Zebisch M, Pedoth L, Pörnbacher M, Renner K, Fritsch U, Alberton M, Bertoldi G, Bisignano J,

Project: Climate Change Adaptation Strategy South Tyrol

Il documento “Rischi climatici e adattamento – Verso un Alto Adige resiliente al clima” analizza i possibili impatti, i rischi climatici e le loro cause per l’Alto Adige in nove settori e propone strategie e pacchetti di misure per il necessario adattamento. Lo scopo è quello di preparare e informare la strategia di adattamento ai cambiamenti climatici della Provincia; pertanto, si concentra sui rischi climatici che interessano vaste zone dell'Alto Adige o che colpiscono contemporaneamente diversi sistemi, settori o campi d'azione e si diffondono a cascata. Inoltre, questo studio si concentra sulle strategie e sulle misure di adattamento (come gli strumenti politici) che dovrebbero essere introdotte e implementate a livello provinciale, piuttosto che sulle misure tecniche nei singoli campi di azione.

DOI Source

DOI: 10.57749/q8y8-tv70

Journal article2023

Analysing spatial patterns of climate change: Climate clusters, hotspots and analogues to support climate risk assessment and communication in Germany

Crespi A, Renner K, Zebisch M, Schauser I, Leps N, Walter A

Kathrin Renner, Marc Zebisch, Alice Crespi

The spatial visualization of current and future climate conditions is one key component for assessing related impacts and risks in a given territory. A suitable combination of statistical methods and visualisation techniques allows the creation of outputs that support the interpretation and understanding as well as communication of the complex climate analysis to a wider target audience. The present paper describes the adopted approaches to portray information about climate change in Germany until the end of the 21st century in meaningful maps with the aim to communicate it to the public as well as decision makers. In particular, the conducted analyses focused on the assessment of climate regions, climate hotspots and climate analogues. The maps showing the resulting spatial patterns 1) divide the country in seven climate clusters, 2) reveal different hotspot areas of climate change in terms of key indicators for the middle and the end of the century and 3) provide current and future climate shifts of German cities to analogue regions in Europe. Results are accompanied with recommendations and interpretation aids supporting the correct use for practical applications and communication purposes. The final map products resulting from these analyses and published in the frame of the Climate Impact and Risk Assessment for Germany 2021 were taken up by different national media outlets (print and audio), education experts as well as stakeholders, showing benefits and limitations of the visualisation choices.

DOI

DOI: 10.1016/j.cliser.2023.100373

Journal article2023

Assessing OpenStreetMap roads fitness-for-use for disaster risk assessment in developing countries: The case of Burundi

Campalani P, Pittore M, Renner K

Piero Campalani, Kathrin Renner, Massimiliano Pittore

Evidence shows how disasters caused by extreme weather events are surely becoming more frequent at all
latitudes, and are definitely representing an ever-growing risk in the floods- and landslides-prone territory of Burundi. The still present inequalities of its society and the vulnerable economy make this African country a very relevant and particularly complex case for hazards risk management. A fundamental step in this task is to correctly map the so-called exposure elements to risk, which most notably comprise the population and households, the critical infrastructure, and the transportation network. In this article, we assess the quality of the OpenStreetMap (OSM) roads database in Burundi at national level, with a perspective in its fitness-for-use in the assistance for disaster risk mitigation purposes, which were adopted in the context of a
recent multi-hazards risk assessment and mapping exercise on behalf of the International Organisation for
Migration. Despite not touching all aspects of volunteered geographic information data quality that are commonly found in literature for a comprehensive assessment, we believe the information provided in this study can be of help for stakeholders in their decision to use the OSM dataset in an otherwise data-scarce area.

DOI Source

DOI: 10.1515/geo-2022-0485

Journal article2023

Border-independent multi-functional, multi-hazard exposure modelling in Alpine regions

Pittore M, Campalani P, Renner K, Plörer M, Tagliavini F

Piero Campalani, Kathrin Renner, Massimiliano Pittore

Extreme hydrometeorological events such as the 2018 Vaia storm increasingly threaten alpine regions with multiple hazards often compounded and with cascading effects. Currently available risk assessment and prevention tools may therefore prove inadequate, particularly for transborder and vulnerable mountain areas, calling for comprehensive multi-hazard and transdisciplinary approaches. In particular, the exposed assets should not anymore be considered a sheer collection of static items, but the models should also reflect functional features. In this paper, we propose an integrated approach to multi-hazard exposure modelling including both static and functional components. The model is based on a homogeneous planar tessellation composed of hexagonal cells and a graph-like structure which describes the functional connections among the cells. To exemplify the methodology, a combination of static (buildings, protective forests), dynamic (population) and functional (road-based transport system) components has been considered together, targeting a ca. 10,000 km² region across Italy and Austria. A cell-based aggregation at 250 m resolution and an innovative graph-based simplification allow for a good trade-off between the complexity of the model and its computational efficiency for risk-related applications. Furthermore, aggregation ensures protection of sensitive data at a scale still useful for civil protection. The resulting model can be used for different applications including scenario-based risk analysis and numeric simulation, probabilistic risk assessment, impact forecasting and early warning.

DOI Source

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-023-06134-3

Journal article2023

Research advancements for impact chain based climate risk and vulnerability assessments

Petutschnig L, Rome E, Lückerath D, Milde K, Gerger Swartling Å, Aall C, Meyer M, Jordá G,

Kathrin Renner, Marc Zebisch

Project: UNCHAIN – A new generation of action- and user-oriented climate change risk assessments

As the climate crisis continues to worsen, there is an increasing demand for scientific evidence from Climate Risk and Vulnerability Assessments (CRVA). We present 12 methodological advancements to the Impact Chain-based CRVA (IC-based CRVA) framework, which combines participatory and data-driven approaches to identify and measure climate risks in complex socio-ecological systems. The advancements improve the framework along five axes, including the existing workflow, stakeholder engagement, uncertainty management, socio-economic scenario modeling, and transboundary climate risk examination. Eleven case studies were conducted and evaluated to produce these advancements. Our paper addresses two key research questions: (a) How can the IC-based CRVA framework be methodologically advanced to produce more accurate and insightful results? and (b) How effectively can the framework be applied in research and policy domains that it was not initially designed for? We propose methodological advancements to capture dynamics between risk factors, to resolve contradictory worldviews, and to maintain consistency between Impact Chains across policy scales. We suggest using scenario-planning techniques and integrating uncertainties via Probability Density Functions and Reverse Geometric Aggregation. Our research examines the applicability of IC-based CRVAs to address transboundary climate risks and integrating macro-economic models to reflect possible future socio-economic exposure. Our findings demonstrate that the modular structure of IC-based CRVA allows for the integration of various methodological advancements, and further advancements are possible to better assess complex climate risks and improve adaptation decision-making.

DOI Source

DOI: 10.3389/fclim.2023.1095631

Conference proceedings article2022

Climate Impact Chains—A Conceptual Modelling Approach for Climate Risk Assessment in the Context of Adaptation Planning

Zebisch M, Terzi S, Pittore M, Renner K, Schneiderbauer S

Marc Zebisch, Kathrin Renner, Massimiliano Pittore, Stefano Terzi, Stefan Schneiderbauer

In this paper we present a conceptual framework for a climate risk assessment based on the so-called impact chains. The method follows a general assessment framework consistent with the IPCC AR5 concept on climate risk. This framework has been developed by Eurac Research within the context of various projects with the German Environment Agency and the German Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (German Corporation for International Cooperation)—GIZ. It has been applied in almost twenty national climate risk assessments worldwide (e.g., Burundi, Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, Madagascar) and has been perceived as (1) an appropriate means for risk analysis, (2) a useful tool for communication of complex cause-effect relationships in climate change impacts and risks, and (3) a great approach to identify entry points for adaptation measures. For an operational risk assessment, impact chains serve as a basis for the selection of appropriate models, indicators or guide more qualitative, expert-based assessments.

DOI Source

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-86211-4_25

Presentation2022

Multi-hazard, cross-border storm risk assessment in the Alps. First insights from the TRANS-ALP project

Renner K, Campalani P, Crespi A, Dainese R, Enigl K, Haslinger K, Pittore M, Plörer M,

Alice Crespi, Marc Zebisch, Kathrin Renner, Massimiliano Pittore, Piero Campalani

Extreme hydrometeorological events such as late autumn and winter storms are being increasingly observed in southern Europe and particularly in the Alps, where they threaten environmental and socio-economic systems. An example is the 2018 Vaia (also known as Adrian) storm (Oct 28-Nov 04), which strongly affected Italy, Austria, France and Switzerland. Over the past decades several damaging storms strongly impacted (i.e., caused adverse consequences on assets, people, infrastructure or the environment) mostly those countries on the northern side of the Alps (e.g., Vivian 1990, Lothar 1999, Gudrun 2005, Kyrill 2007). The Vaia storm however affected the southern side, downing more than 8 million cubic meters of forests and causing extensive damage due to a combination of multiple compounded hazards including heavy rain, flooding and landslides, and strong winds. The event caused 12 fatalities and an economic loss exceeding 3 billion Euro. This storm has been considered exceptional yet could foreshadow multi-hazard phenomena whose frequency and intensity are likely to be influenced by climate change. In such conditions, currently available risk assessment and prevention tools may prove inadequate, particularly on a cross-border level and in vulnerable mountainous regions. Therefore, there is a need to provide decision makers and stakeholders with improved and harmonised tools and standardised frameworks to conduct efficient (climate) risk assessments for cross-border areas. Current and future impacts need to be systematically investigated to adopt prevention and disaster risk reduction measures for the mitigation of inherent risks. In its first year the TRANS-ALP project analysed the occurrence of severe weather events that can be classified as extreme and their specific features in the cross-border area between Austria and Italy (Trentino-Alto Adige/South Tyrol and Veneto). Furthermore, a systematic review of the mechanisms in place to collect impact, damage and loss data has been conducted to allow for a better conceptualisation of the different risk pathways that come into play in case of intense storms. Our findings indicate a noticeable increase of extreme weather conditions that can lead to adverse consequences, also from a systemic perspective, and a complex interplay of damaging factors and chained impacts that can extend for years after the occurrence of the generating events. The findings also highlight the importance of a comprehensive multi-hazard and transdisciplinary approach to storm risk assessment within a framework harmonising Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) instances. In this contribution the first results and insights of the project will be presented and discussed.

The described research activities have been carried out within the framework of the DG-ECHO project TRANS-ALP funded by the European Union (Grant Agreement 101004843).

DOI Source

DOI: 10.5194/egusphere-egu22-12811

Journal article2020

Spatial-Explicit Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments Based on Impact Chains: Findings from a Case Study in Burundi

Schneiderbauer S, Baunach D, Pedoth L, Renner K, Fritzsche K, Bollin C, Pregnolato M, Zebisch M,

Stefan Schneiderbauer, Lydia Pedoth, Marc Zebisch, Kathrin Renner

Climate change vulnerability assessments are an essential instrument to identify regions
most vulnerable to adverse impacts of climate change and to determine appropriate adaptation
measures. Vulnerability assessments directly support countries in developing adaptation plans and
in identifying possible measures to reduce adverse consequences of changing climate conditions.
Against this background, this paper describes a vulnerability assessment using an integrated
and participatory approach that builds on standardized working steps of previously developed
‘Vulnerability Sourcebook’ guidelines. The backbone of this approach is impact chains as a conceptual
model of cause–eect relationships as well as a structured selection of indicators according to the three
main components of vulnerability, namely exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. We illustrate
our approach by reporting the results of a vulnerability assessment conducted in Burundi focusing on
climate change impacts on water and soil resources. Our work covers two analysis scales: a national
assessment with the aim to identify climate change ‘hotspot regions’ through vulnerability mapping;
and a local assessment aiming at identifying local-specific drivers of vulnerability and appropriate
adaptation measures. Referring to this vulnerability assessment in Burundi, we discuss the potentials
and constraints of the approach. We stress the need to involve stakeholders in every step of the
assessment and to communicate limitations and uncertainties of the applied methods, indicators
and maps in order to increase the comprehension of the approach and the acceptance of the results
by dierent stakeholders. The study proved the practical usability of the approach at the national
level by the selection of three particularly vulnerable areas. The results at a local scale supported the
identification of adaption measures through intensive engagement of local rural populations.

DOI Source

DOI: 10.3390/su12166354

Journal article2017

Spatio-temporal population modelling as improved exposure information for risk assessments tested in the Autonomous Province of Bolzano

Renner K, Schneiderbauer S, Pruß F, Kofler C, Martin D, Cockings S

Stefan Schneiderbauer, Kathrin Renner

Population data is commonly available for administrative units referring to the year of the last census. That level of aggregation and the static character of the information pose particular difficulties for spatial analysis in applications such as disaster management or spatial planning, for which much more time-sensitive population distributions are required. In this study, a flexible model to create dynamic gridded population data with a spatial resolution of 100 m is implemented for the mountainous, hazard-prone and highly touristic region of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, based on the integration of multiple data sources within an explicit spatio-temporal modelling framework. It is argued that dynamic gridded population information provides an improvement to the existing regional datasets. Our study shows that integrating daily and seasonal changes to the distribution of population improves exposure information for risk assessments especially in highly touristic areas.

DOI Source

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2017.11.011

Journal article2015

Integrating rapideye and ancillary data to map alpine habitats in South Tyrol, Italy

Polychronaki A, Spindler N, Schmidt A, Stoinschek B, Zebisch M, Renner K, Sonnenschein R, Notarnicola C

Ruth Sonnenschein, Claudia Notarnicola, Marc Zebisch, Kathrin Renner

In this paper, we present a two-stage method for mapping habitats using Earth observation (EO) data in three Alpine sites in South Tyrol, Italy. The first stage of the method was the classification of land cover types using multi-temporal RapidEye images and support vector machines (SVMs). The second stage involved reclassification of the land cover types to habitat types following a rule-based spatial kernel. The highest accuracies in land cover classification were 95.1% overall accuracy, 0.94 kappa coefficient and 4.9% overall disagreement. These accuracies were obtained when the combination of images with topographic parameters and homogeneity texture was used. The habitat classification accuracies were rather moderate due to the broadly defined rules and possible inaccuracies in the reference map. Overall, our proposed methodology could be implemented to map cost-effectively alpine habitats over large areas and could be easily adapted to map other types of habitats. © 2014 Elsevier B.V..

DOI Source

DOI: 10.1016/j.jag.2014.11.008

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Presentation2022

Multi-hazard, cross-border storm risk assessment in the Alps. First insights from the TRANS-ALP project

Renner K, Campalani P, Crespi A, Dainese R, Enigl K, Haslinger K, Pittore M, Plörer M,

Alice Crespi, Marc Zebisch, Kathrin Renner, Massimiliano Pittore, Piero Campalani

The described research activities have been carried out within the framework of the DG-ECHO project TRANS-ALP funded by the European Union (Grant Agreement 101004843).

DOI Source

DOI: 10.5194/egusphere-egu22-12811