2024/25 Taught Postgraduate Module Catalogue
SOEE5868M Climate Risk
30 creditsClass Size: 60
Module manager: John Marsham
Email: J.Marsham@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable
Year running 2024/25
Pre-requisites
| SOEE5860M | Physical climate change, impacts and mitigation |
| SOEE5870M | Social and Political Dimensions of the Climate Challenge |
This module is not approved as an Elective
Module summary
What happens when climate change is understood as a question of ‘risk’? This module addresses climate risks and their management, including risk perception and communication, analysis of climate hazards, risk assessment and management approaches. By the end of the module students should be able to understand risk assessments and decision-making strategies, and contribute to their delivery, but also to understand underlying theory and critically assess evidence and approaches to risk and uncertainty in climate futures.Objectives
By the end of this module, students will have gained:- Knowledge of current understanding of how climate change affects hazards and impacts, and approaches to uncertainty (online lectures, in-person seminars, field course).
- An understanding of how to use peer-reviewed and other information to inform and interpret climate change risk assessments (computer-lab classes, online lectures, seminars, individual assessment).
- An understanding of how to communicate assessed risk to diverse audiences and discuss different approaches to decision making based on risks (online lectures, seminars, team assessment).
- The ability to relate theoretical concepts taught and explored in the module to real-world contexts (throughout – and including field course, individual assessment, team presentation).
Learning outcomes
1. Outline approaches to defining, perceiving, and measuring risk.
2. Explain what can be determined about the likelihood and magnitude of climate events (e.g., ice sheet change, sea level rise, mid latitude storms and flooding).
3. Analyse diverse climate risk problems and apply appropriate risk framings.
4. Present a rationale for different decision-making approaches to managing risk under uncertainty.
5. Communicate risk appropriately to diverse audiences.
Skills outcomes
- Design climate risk communications products and effective tailoring to audience.
- Obtain and critically assess science literature/information on climate hazards and risk.
- Work effectively within a team to common goals, including sharing tasks, delegation, time-planning, leading and providing constructive feedback to peers.
- Identifying & synthesising evidence from diverse sources to understand and characterise climate risks, identifying evidence gaps.
- Be able to explain how different management approaches can be applied to diverse climate risk problems.
Syllabus
Foundational concepts: Definition/meaning of risk; ISO standards; IPCC approaches
Risk perception and communication: Differences between technical characterisations of risk and how risk is perceived; the factors influencing risk perception; heuristics and biases; mental models approach to risk communication; assessing communication.
Hazard and impact quantification: Approaches for estimating changing risks of climate hazards & impacts; weather and climate modelling for extremes and impacts; early-warning; climatological risk; attribution of extremes; HILL events; cascading/sequential/combinatorial risk.
Approaches to uncertainties: Aleatoric vs epistemic uncertainty; Bayesian uncertainty/uncertainty quantification; frequentist approach/return periods; deep uncertainty.
Risk assessment: Focusing on climate change, including treatment of uncertainty, time of emergence, compound and cascading risks
Decision making under uncertainty: Including future discounting, monetising risk/economics, storylines.
Teaching methods
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
| Supervision | 1 | 1.00 | 1.00 |
| Fieldwork | 1 | 8.00 | 8.00 |
| Lecture | 7 | 1.00 | 7.00 |
| Lecture | 16 | 0.50 | 8.00 |
| Practical | 2 | 3.00 | 6.00 |
| Seminar | 20 | 1.00 | 20.00 |
| Private study hours | 243.00 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 50.00 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 293.00 | ||
Opportunities for Formative Feedback
“Risk perception and communication: Verbal feedback on infographics at risk perception workshop on infographic developmentHazard and impact quantification/uncertainty: Two in-person computer labs will allow hands-on analysis of questions relating to lecture material. Time included for small group and plenary discussion of outcomes, and questions.
Risk Assessment: Through three 2-hour seminars/workshops, preparing students for assessment 1. (i) Mini Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA), drawing on CCRA methods and aware of limitations, linking to assessment on critical assessment of climate risk literature, showing an awareness of methods and inherent limitations . (ii, iii) Risk framings from IPCC and UK CCRA and critique of risk assessments (parts I and II).
Decision making under Uncertainty: Through two 2-hour workshops, with groups representing different stakeholders (cf assessment-2).
Field course: During field course (1 day) and at post field course wash-up.
Workshop on final assessment-2 as it is being developed, with formative feedback from staff and peers”
Methods of assessment
Coursework
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
| Critique | Individual submission, 2000 words (max.) | 35.00 |
| Oral Presentation | Team presentation, 20 minutes max. | 65.00 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100.00 | |
Individual written critique of a selection of key studies relevant to risk assessment for a particular sector (e.g. water, agriculture, health, energy, infrastructure, marine, finance, tourism, biodiversity etc.) on a given spatial scale (city, national, region, global etc.) and time scale (e.g. current, mid-century, 2100) [35%] Team presentation (20 min) of a briefing addressing both risks and solutions, for a stakeholder who is facing a climate change risk, including an infographic [65%]. Team contributions will be assessed using peer-review. Guidelines and rubric for assessment will explicitly map onto intended learning outcomes. Resit format for oral presentation: personal statement (max. 2,500 words), including reflection on the individual’s participation in the teamwork, reflection on their perspective and role, and a report of the concrete contributions that they could/should have made to the broader piece.
Reading list
The reading list is available from the Library websiteLast updated: 29/04/2024 16:20:31
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