The book provides an overview of the Slow Onset Disasters (SLOD) in the urban built environment
discussing potential strategies to assess and mitigate multiple climate change related risks.
Climate change evidence has been reported in the last decades suggesting that the
anthropogenic activities are accelerating these changes towards a warmer and more polluted
environment. In this context SLODs have been linked to climate change related disasters and
have been stated to have a higher impact risk within dense built environment (BE). Therefore
the book presents a description of the most relevant SLODs their significance and confluence
the way in which scientists and entities are monitoring their progression at different scales
a structured risk assessment strategy and the deconstruction of the BE characteristics that
make it more prone to SLODs risk. In addition it highlights the necessity of adapting the
traditional risk assessment methods to account for different vulnerabilitytypes including the
morphology and materiality of the BE and the BE users' characteristics. In fact individual
features influence users' responses and tolerance to environmental stressors because of age
health gender habits and behaviour thus impacting the users' vulnerability. Exposure can
then amplify these issues since it defines the number of users that can be effectively
affected by the SLOD. Starting from this perspective the book first traces literature-based
correlations between individual features use behaviour and individual response to the
SLOD-altered open spaces. Then a novel methodology to quantify the variations of users'
vulnerability and exposure is offered to support designers in quickly defining input
scenarios for risk assessment and mitigation. Lastly it demonstrates through a case study
the SLOD risk assessment framework proposed and the evaluation of the efficacy of risk
mitigation strategies.
