VICARIUS
Visual Integration for Climate Analysis of Risks and Impacts in Urban Systems
Seeing coexisting urban risks together, deciding as one.
The project
The VICARIUS project was developed by MEEO within a call for proposals issued by the RETURN Foundation.
RETURN (Multi Risk Science for Resilient Communities under a Changing Climate) is a National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) initiative aimed at strengthening the resilience of Italian territories to natural, environmental, and anthropogenic risks, structured through cascading calls organised into thematic areas named "spokes".
Within Spoke 5 - TS1: Urban and Metropolitan Settlements, VICARIUS addresses the need for tools that can visualise and communicate coexisting and interconnected risks (climatic, environmental, natural, anthropogenic) in urban and metropolitan contexts, supporting coordinated decision-making across different sectors.
The platform
VICARIUS is a web-based Minimum Viable Product (MVP) platform built around two main objectives:
- Integrate harmonised near-real-time (NRT) data from external sources with static information.
- Present it clearly through easy-to-read maps, delivered via a modular, API-driven architecture and a geospatial microservice for webGIS and digital twin applications.
The platform is demonstrated on two representative Italian use cases, Milan and Bologna, each fed by institutional and open data sources:
- Milan integrates air quality modelling from Copernicus CAMS (with AQI values re-scaled via IDW interpolation), climate indicators from the DECI.METRO decision-making system, and open data from the Municipality of Milan. An "Elevate" 3D mode and a calendar for NRT data support the exploration of the area.
- Bologna combines a flooding map from the modelling component (with distinct water-level classes), WebGIS layers of the Metropolitan City of Bologna, layers from the Emilia-Romagna Region Geoportal, and open data from the Municipality of Bologna. Population data from the official statistical areas of Bologna is refined, where finer granularity is required, through a dasymetric mapping approach using ancillary data (building footprints and residential areas).
For both use cases, the main emergency and safety services are mapped, enabling an assessment of urban resilience to potential risks and giving decision-makers a single environment where multiple, interconnected risks (including multi-risk scenarios) can be seen together and acted upon in a coordinated way.
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- Italian use cases: Milan and Bologna