The Intensive Programme (IP) is designed to provide an in-depth understanding of climate change and its impact on environmental and socio-economic processes inherent in mountain landscapes across Europe. The International Summer School discusses local and regional climate change constraints and highlights past and present ecosystem examples in the light of climate change processes. Special risks (e.g. droughts) and climate change induced vulnerability of landscapes are analysed and assessed at a typical meso-scale of 1:50.000. Generic spatial analysis tools from Geoinformatics (GIS) and Advanced Remote Sensing are employed to study methods and techniques to assess regional space and time related climate change problems as well as adaptation and mitigation strategies. Students learn to implement and connect different mono-thematically findings and study how to disseminate them to a wider audience using Web Processing Services in a Geo-Portal environment. Participants are guided from “simple” discipline oriented approaches to more sophisticated multidisciplinary, holistic methods aiming at an integrated assessment of climate change mitigation management and planning of countermeasure actions in mountain areas. Students will not only benefit from the experiences and knowledge of partner institutions reporting on current EU research projects in the field, but also have the opportunity to present and discuss their Summer School work projects with an international scientific audience at the Geoinformatics Forum Salzburg >www.gi-forum.org/ and AGIT symposia >www.agit.at.
