Projects

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EDITO-Model Lab, Underlying models for the European DIgital Twin Ocean – EDITO-Model Lab

EDITO-Model Lab will prepare the next generation of ocean models, complementary to Copernicus Marine Service to be integrated into the EU public infrastructure of the European Digital Twin Ocean that will ensure access to required input and validation data (from EMODnet, EuroGOOS, ECMWF, Copernicus Services and Sentinels satellite observations) and to high performance and distributed computing facilities (from EuroHPC for High Performance Computing and other cloud computing resources) and that will be consolidated under developments of Destination Earth (DestinE). 


ELEVATE – Enabling and Leveraging Climate Action Towards Netzero Emissions

ELEVATE is a project funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme and the consortium consists of 20 partners, and brings together leading research groups to support climate policymaking within and outside the EU. These research groups are involved in modelling international climate policy, national policies, social science, policy analysis, environmental assessment, and stakeholder engagement. World-leading institutions in global integrated assessment modelling are a central part of the ELEVATE consortium (IIASA, PBL, PIK, CMCC, E3M, NIES, KU, UFRJ/COPPETEC, and UMD). This means that the consortium involves all teams that have played a leading role in the coordination and development of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, which serve to integrate the assessment of mitigation, adaptation and impacts research across the climate change science community.


ENMASSE: Enhancing NEMO for Marine Applications and Services

The Enhancing NEMO for Marine Applications and Services (ENMASSE) project represents a pivotal initiative aimed at advancing the capabilities of the NEMO (Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean) modelling platform. This enhancement is designed to address specific scientific and operational requirements set by the Copernicus Marine Service (CMS) program for the development and delivery of more precise and sophisticated ocean modelling products. These products are intended to support a wide range of applications, including marine safety, climate prediction, and ecosystem monitoring, ultimately contributing to informed decision-making and sustainable ocean management.


ENTICE: ENhanced understanding of Trade Impacts on Climate, industries, and the Environment

Despite the wide recognition of the complex interactions between trade (policy) and climate (policy), the state-of-the-art capabilities in macroeconomic models face substantial limitations, such as lack of granular data, dependence on conventional trade theories, limited empirical evidence on trade-climate interactions, limited representation of the value and material chain in key (existing and emerging) sectors, heavy reliance on frameworks not accounting for endogenous technical change, limited understanding of the role of developing countries in trade, etc.


EO4MULTIHA: High-Impact Multi-Hazards Science

The EO4MULTIHA project is a European Space Agency funded project aiming to explore the potential of Earth observation technology to advance the scientific understanding of high impact multi-hazard events. The project will focus on several compound and cascading hazards, in order to better identify, characterize and assess their associated risk, vulnerability and impacts on society and ecosystems.


EOSC Beyond: advancing innovation and collaboration for research

EOSC Beyond is a 36-month project coordinated by the EGI Foundation with the ambition to support the growth of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) in terms of integrated providers and active users by providing new EOSC core technical solutions that allow developers of scientific application environments to easily compose a diverse portfolio of EOSC Resources offering them as integrated capabilities to researchers.


ESA CMUG: Climate Modelling Users Group

ESA has established the Climate Modelling User Group (CMUG) to place a climate system perspective at the centre of its Climate Change Initiative (CCI) programme, and to provide a dedicated forum through which the Earth observation data community and the climate modelling and reanalysis community can work closely together. CMUG will work with the Essential Climate Variable CCI projects to achieve this goal.


ESiWACE3 – Center of excellence for weather and climate phase 3

Extreme weather events and climate change are two of the main threats for society of the 21st century. Extreme weather events caused over 500 thousand casualties and over 2 trillion USD economic damages in the past 20 years. A failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation targets is ranked among the leading threats to global society. At the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, leaders from 194 countries of the world unanimously acknowledged the serious threat posed by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. Society must now become resilient to changes in climate over coming decades, which requires making quantitative estimates for future changes of weather patterns and climate extremes. This includes exceptional weather events such as violent windstorms and flash floods, but also persistent anomalies in planetary-scale circulation patterns, which lead to pervasive flooding in some regions and seasons, and long-lived drought and extremes of heat in others. Numerical models of the Earth system represent the most important tool to anticipate and assess these kinds of threats. One of the main factors that is limiting the skill of these models is limited resolution, and resolution, in turn, is limited by computational power that can be leveraged by these models. The first two phases of the ESiWACE Centre of Excellence (COE) have pushed the resolution of global Earth system models to unprecedented levels. This includes the first global atmosphere models that were able to run at ~1 km resolution in the first phase of ESiWACE and coupled atmosphere/ocean models that were able to


EUNICE – Debiasing the uncertainties of climate stabilization ensembles

Mathematical models have become central tools in global environmental assessments. To serve society well, climate change stabilization assessments need to capture the uncertainties of the deep future, be statistically sound and track near-term disruptions. Up to now, conceptual, computational and data constraints have limited the quantification of uncertainties of climate stabilization pathways to a narrow set, focused on the current century. The statistical interpretation of scenarios generated by multi-model ensembles is problematic due to availability biases and model dependencies. Scenario plausibility assessments are scant. Simplified, single-objective decision criteria frameworks are used to translate decarbonization uncertainties into decision rules whose understanding is not validated. 


FIND: Finance and Innovation to couple Negative emissions and sustainable Development

Current global climate action is deeply insufficient to deliver the objectives of the Paris Agreement and containing global warming to 1.5 °C will likely require the deployment of carbon dioxide removals. However, the technologies to sequestrate and store carbon from the atmosphere are currently immature, risky, and highly questioned. Understanding the effective diffusion potential of carbon removal methods and their socioeconomic and environmental impacts is pivotal to design future climate action. FIND will help to develop an innovative framework to assess the feasibility and social desirability of limiting global warming through the diffusion of negative emission technologies. It aims to ensure that negative emission technologies act as an enabler, not a barrier, of long-run sustainable development. The project will evaluate climate and non-climate policies to create robust, no-regret policy portfolios supporting a rapid and sustainable path to a net-zero society. FIND will be of high relevance for public policy and civil society, especially considering Europe’s commitment to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 while spurring green and inclusive growth.


FIRELOGUE – Cross-sector Wildfire Risk Management Dialogue

Wildfire risk management (WFRM) is characterised by complex interdependencies between vegetation conditions, climate, human behavior and socioeconomic development and inequalities. In addition, different institutions and organisations involved on WFRM may have diverging interests, needs, policies and practices, with responsibilities not always aligned with the necessary resources. Thus, WFRM can be subject to conflicts between different ends in which different stakeholders with different interests and goals clash. FIRELOGUE coordinates and supports the Innovation Actions funded under H2020 calls by integrating their findings across stakeholder and fire management phases to deconstruct conflicting interests and real or perceived injustices, providing a space for deliberating in a just and inclusive way, to co-develop integrated strategies to overcome these conflicts.


FIUMICINO Project: Morphodynamic and Sediment Transport, Hydrodynamic, and Ecological Characterization of the Physiographic Unit from Capo Linaro to Capo d’Anzio

The project fits into a broad system of observation, monitoring, and analysis of the marine environment that addresses the need to harmonize the protection of marine ecosystems with the proper management and development of coastal area uses. The response of natural systems to variations generated by specific coastal interventions overlaps with the variations induced by climate trends and territorial changes (land use, riverbed interventions, industries) occurring in the relevant basins, generating an overlap of effects that modulate the evolution of the receiving sea area and coasts on different spatial and temporal scales. The study area is dominated by the presence of the Tiber River, which, being the main watercourse of central Italy, significantly influences the sediment balance in the area and the distribution of biocoenoses. The same area will be affected by a series of activities related to the construction of new port infrastructures. To analyze such a complex system and to separate as accurately as possible the variations induced by a project from the evolution of the system itself, it is therefore essential to know the physical and dynamic characteristics of the study area and the current environmental state, through an in-depth analysis of the main impacts and pressures affecting the entire area and its habitats. This project aims to study the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of the area between Capo Linaro and Capo d’Anzio through a multidisciplinary study that involves the integration of observational data and numerical modeling and to support the development of the works and


FOODCLIC – Integrated urban FOOD policies. Developing sustainability Co-benefits, spatial Linkages, social Inclusion and sectoral Connections to transform food systems in city-regions

Europe’s urban areas face significant challenges to ensure the availability and consumption of healthy, affordable, safe and sustainably produced food. Such challenges converge within local food environments but are often neglected by public planners. Promising initiatives taken by municipalities to change the architecture of food choice often fail to become embedded in the wider policy context and to reach deprived and vulnerable groups. Key factors responsible for this are: (1) siloed ways of working and (2) fragmentation of knowledge on facilitators and barriers related to food system transformation. These factors hinder the development and implementation of integrated urban food policies. FOODCLIC aims to contribute to urban food environments that make healthy and sustainable food available, affordable and attractive to all citizens (including deprived and vulnerable groups).


GEOCEP – Global Excellence in Modeling Climate and Energy Policies

GEOCEP is a project on climate and energy policy modelling and an international network for knowledge transfers. GEOCEP identifies institutional and political obstacles to implementing the first-best solutions to control for the global carbon externality and, consequently, investigates an array of second-best energy and climate mitigation policies focused on increasing energy efficiency, on reducing emissions and related environmental and health externalities and on promoting renewable energy. GEOCEP has is funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.


Germ of Life: Digital Drought Risk Management enabling the drought mitigation and adaptation strategies for the restoration of the ecosystem equilibrium in Mediterranean European Countries

The Germ of Life project aims at developing, test and uptake a drought risk management preventive approach based on a set of jointly developed and adapted solutions based on: (i) newly available data, (ii) drought risk prediction for the territorial monitoring systems and timely warning of drought conditions, (iii) a vulnerability assessment tool enhancing the coordination and cooperation of stakeholders, and (iv) an innovation procurement platform for innovative NBS and technological solutions supporting risk-adaptation strategies.


GoNEXUS – Innovative tools and solutions for governing the water-energy-food-ecosystems NEXUS under global change

GoNEXUS aims to develop a framework for designing and assessing innovative solutions for an efficient and sustainable coordinated governance of the water-energy-food-ecosystems (WEFE) nexus. Solutions will combine policy changes and soft path options with technical and infrastructure measures for a more resilient future. To achieve this objective, the project will build a powerful model toolbox and creative participatory Nexus Dialogues. The model toolbox will include forefront global/continental and river basin models, innovatively establishing a functional link between them. At global and continental scales, the toolbox will include the individual WEFE element models CAPRI (food, agri-environment), LISFLOOD-EPIC and PCR-GLOBWB (water), PRIMES and PROMETHEUS (energy), GLOBIO (environment), and GEM-E3 (macroeconomics), some of them used in EU policies. River basin models will include nested strategic WEFE management models (including behavioral modelling) and hydrological simulation models to expand the analysis of resilience at basin scale, including impacts on ecosystems. Nexus Dialogues will co- design scenarios, models, and solutions for a joint governance of the WEFE nexus. The solutions will be evaluated using the model toolbox through a set of novel nexus indicators and criteria (based on relevant SDGs metrics) to assess trade-offs between water status, and food and energy security. GoNEXUS will be applied at global and EU levels and to six river basins representing different features and WEFE challenges in Europe (Danube, Como, Jucar, Tagus-Segura) and Africa (Zambezi, Senegal). The innovative combination of models and Nexus Dialogues will provide more accurate evaluations of future scenarios, enabling knowledge sharing and brokerage, and improving WEFE


GreenHeritage: The impact of Climate Change on the Intangible Cultural Heritage

GreenHeritage aims at developing a holistic, innovative and inclusive approach toward direct and indirect climate change (CC) impact on intangible cultural heritage (ICH), a topic which has received little or no attention at all. GreenHeritage is a large-scale project that fosters innovation through practice, by researching and adopting a new methodology that touches on different sectors, and policy, by disseminating research findings and impacting policies at national and European levels. The project will be implemented in 5 European countries (Belgium, Greece, Italy, Latvia and Spain).


GRINS – Growing Resilient, INclusive and Sustainable

The green, digital and sustainable mobility transitions and the associated societal transformations require a far from trivial process of adaptation. The actors of the system, firms, households and public administrations, face complex and changing environments and need to make choices under uncertainty, often under limited information and often facing limitations in their ability to process it and use if proficiently. To respond to these needs – GRINS – Growing Resilient, INclusive and Sustainable Extended Partnership will offer tools to support fundamental and applied research for firms and households and for policy analysis and evaluation of the actions of public administrations. The project is designed following the priorities set by the Italian National Research Plan (PNR) and in strict adherence with the fundamental underline goals that inspire the whole EU-NRRP action: favouring resilient, inclusive, and sustainable growth.


HEATSAFE: Holistic EnvironmenTAl and Social Adaptation Framework for Extreme heat

HEATSAFE directly tackles the need to adapt against climate change adverse effects in the whole Mediterranean area. The intensity of heatwaves is amplified in urban areas by factors such as the configuration of the city, the lack of vegetation or the materials of urbanized surfaces, so the strategy to mitigate their effects must be designed specifically for each territory. Sociodemographic conditions must also be considered, as significant correlation between exposure to extreme heat and socioeconomic vulnerability has been shown, leading to nearly double the mortality risk in some deprived districts. This local complex planning cannot be addressed without a clear methodology. In this sense, HEATSAFE will address the most suitable ways to adapt these territories to these effects by developing key activities in Spain, Italy. Albania, Bulgaria and Greece, and with the aim of replicating project approach in the whole Mediterranean area. HEATSAFE will improve the prevention, mitigation and management of risks arising from increased frequency and intensity of extreme heat and heatwaves in the Mediterranean basin through the co-development of local action plans and the implementation of demonstrative pilot actions; complemented by a long-term strategy and opensource tools to establish heat vulnerability maps across the MED area.


HURRAY: HazelnUt Research on Resilient Areas for future Yields

In recent years, cooperation between enterprises and the scientific community has opened exploration of new climate services to understand emerging opportunities to enhance/stabilize agricultural production and reduce risks due to climate hazards. The information released by applied research on climate change can create benefits and opportunities, giving a wider vision of the future and facilitating strategic planning activities for different economic sectors, such as agribusiness. This information may relate to the  characterization and evolution of weather-climatic conditions and the use of agro-climate models.


IDAlert – Infectious Disease decision-support tools and Alert systems to build climate Resilience to emerging health Threats

Climate change is one of several drivers of recurrent outbreaks and geographical range expansion of zoonotic infectious diseases in Europe. Policy and decision-makers need tailored monitoring of climate-induced disease risk, and decision support tools for timely early warning and impact assessment for proactive preparedness and timely responses. The abundance of open data in Europe allows the establishment of more effective, accessible, and cost-beneficial prevention and control responses. IDAlert will co-create novel policy-relevant pan-European indicators that track past, present, and future climate-induced disease risk across hazard, exposure, and vulnerability domains at the animal, human and environment interface. Indicators will be sub-national and disaggregated through an inequality lens. We will generate tools to assess cost-benefit of climate change adaptation and mitigation measures across sectors and scales, to reveal novel policy entry points and opportunities. Surveillance, early warning and response systems will be co-created and prototyped to increase health system resilience at regional and local levels, and explicitly reduce socio-economic inequality. Indicators and tools will be co-produced through multilevel engagement, innovative methodologies, existing and new data streams and citizen science, taking advantage of intelligence generated from selected hotspots in Spain, Greece, The Netherlands, Sweden, and Bangladesh that are experiencing rapid urban transformation and heterogeneous climate-induced disease threats. For implementation, IDAlert has assembled European authorities in climate modelling, infectious disease epidemiology, social sciences, environmental economics, One Health and EcoHealth. Further, by engaging critical stakeholders from the start, IDAlert will ensure long-lasting impacts on EU climate policy, and provide new evidence and tools for the


IDEATION: InlanD watErs in the digitAl Twin OceaN

IDEATION (InlanD watErs in the digitAl Twin OceaN) is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme. IDEATION is based on a cross-border cooperation, involvement, and commitment of stakeholders at European level by following the Water-oriented Living Labs (WoLLs) approach. Stakeholders will be engaged via Multi-Stakeholder Forums (MSF), using a range of different engagement methodologies (e.g., focus groups, workshops, interviews, questionnaires) depending on goals of the engagement and specificities of the context. A comprehensive review will be performed to make an open knowledge inventory for inland water systems (OpenKIWAS). IDEATION will co-design the IDEATION reference architecture defining a set of building blocks, interfaces and standards to make data, models and technologies interoperable and integrable with the Digital Twin Ocean (DTO). Putting together all the results from the MSF, OpenKIWAS, and the IDEATION reference architecture, a roadmap for the integration of inland waters in the Digital Twin Ocean will be created providing a preliminary breakdown of the work, with priorities of implementation, into a stepped approach.

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