Dr Gianluca Maria Guazzo is a ROSETTA postdoctoral fellow with University of Galway and is undertaking his fellowship under the supervision of Prof Kieran Conboy.

Gianluca has a PhD in Big Data Management at the Department of Management and Innovation Systems at the University of Salerno (Italy). His research interests include smart cities, digital transformation and ICT technologies.

Rural communities are more vulnerable to the effect of climate change than those located in urban areas due to their economic reliance on agriculture and natural resources, limited ability to adapt, and geographical locations that may expose them to extreme climate events. As such, they require effective climate adaptation strategies to safeguard their long-term survival. Vulnerabilities of climate change occur at different scales and therefore successful adaptation depends on actions taken at multiple levels internationally, nationally, regionally, and locally. However, climate adaptation strategies are typically only assessed at national level leaving regional and local stakeholders with no information to base their decision-making on.

Gianluca’s ROSETTA project, titled,  “Local Climate Adaptation Readiness of Rural Areas (LoCARRA)” seeks to design and develop a framework, methodology and supporting digital workflow to dynamically report on and assess the climate adaptation readiness of rural and sparsely populated communities. In order to so, the project will combine and participatory research design, stakeholders’ engagement and data analytics to create and test a holistic local climate adaptation readiness assessment framework.

This project aims to actively contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) and 13 (Climate Action).