
LandShift is a groundbreaking initiative aimed at addressing the urgent challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, and unsustainable land management practices. With a focus on the EU's land-use sector, LandShift seeks to develop innovative solutions that not only mitigate biogenic emissions but also enhance ecosystem resilience and promote sustainable resource management. LandShift aims to support the EU's ambitious climate goals by maximizing net removals from LULUCF, while minimizing biogenic emissions from agriculture. By strategically utilizing Living Earths, integrating FAO LCCS with optimized EO data, and Data Cubes as centralized data hubs, the project aims to implement tailored strategies for local and regional contexts, fostering stakeholder engagement and collaboration. Central to LandShift's approach is the integration of NBS aligned with the principles of the New European Bauhaus. These solutions leverage natural processes and ecosystems to enhance carbon sequestration, improve biodiversity, and strengthen ecosystem services. By harnessing the power of NBS, LandShift aims to create synergies between climate mitigation, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable land management. Furthermore, LandShift recognizes the importance of data-driven decision-making and monitoring to track progress and inform policy development. The project will establish robust MRV systems to ensure the effectiveness of implemented strategies and measure their impact on biogenic emissions, biodiversity, and ecosystem health. In addition to technical solutions, LandShift places a strong emphasis on policy influence and capacity building. Through targeted outreach and engagement activities, the project aims to raise awareness, build capacity, and foster collaboration among stakeholders at all levels. By empowering policymakers, land managers, and local communities, LandShift seeks to create an enabling environment for sustainable land use sector and management practices.
As climate disruptions become more frequent and intense, the resilience of Europe's infrastructure is crucial as it supports economic flows, human well-being, and social stability throughout the continent. However, this challenge provides a historic opportunity to revolutionise infrastructure by integrating it with nature. Hence, NATURE-DEMO creates, validates, and spreads nature-based solutions (NbS) for protecting infrastructure against climate threats. It covers critical sectors (e.g. transport and energy) and engages an alliance of infrastructure owners, scientists from industry and academia, and public authorities. NATURE-DEMO aims to shift decision management from reactive measures to proactively designing holistic systems that are resilient by design through four actions: Create, Validate, Scale, and Sustain. NATURE-DEMO will Create an advanced digital decision support platform that will integrate climate projections, asset exposure, NbS catalogue portfolios, and advanced simulations to optimise the efficiency of selected NbS implementations to enhance resilience and deliver co-benefits. NATURE-DEMO will Validate its methodology with real-world demonstrations of optimised NbS across 5 sites in the Alpine Biogeographic region. Successful NbS will then be Scaled as replicators in +4 other sites in the Alpine and other Biogeographic regions. NATURE-DEMO will Sustain its solutions beyond its timeframe by focusing on exploitation pathways that include tailored guidelines that disseminate NbS knowledge across infrastructure professions, a Task-Force available to provide technical expertise, and a financial observatory for NbS funds. By pioneering a scalable, digitally-enabled and validated framework for implementing NbS, NATURE-DEMO will help realise the EU’s vision for a climate-resilient and sustainable economy optimised for the realities and demands of the 21st century - a vision for posterity.
RESIST will strengthen the resilience and accelerate the transformation and increase adaptive capacity of 12 climate-vulnerable EU regions, implementing 4 large-scale demonstrators of resilient innovations for Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) with quintuple-helix partnerships (including 1 in a less developed region) and promote transfer of know-how and innovative solutions to 8 twin regions (of which 4 less developed regions) through both physical mutual-learning activities and innovative immersive digital twins. The consortium will engage EU associations, CCA research groups, scientific experts, social engagement and communication institutions, innovation agencies and 1 Venture Capital Fund to co-create and validate innovative solutions, raise awareness, leverage citizens participation and promote sustainable exploitation of results towards the markets. RESIST will contribute to the EU agenda on CCA, through intervention in 3 main areas: Promote and demonstrate an innovative, more participative approach to resilience and CC adaptation in 4 demonstrator and 8 twinning regions (including 5 less developed regions in total) demonstrating >12 new solution lines, accelerating regional resilience and helping reach the adaptation-mission objectives of ‘building resilience and upscaling solutions through 100 demonstrators and accelerating the transition in 200 pilot regions and communities by 2030’ reaching already 4% and 6% of these aims by 2027, with 4 demonstrators and involvement of 12 regions Co-design and contribute to the development of new regional measures, policy instruments and social and technological solutions in 12 regions involving 22m citizens, increasing awareness/resilience by 10% and levels of green investments by 20%, reducing economic losses due to natural hazards such as floods by 14% and climate protection gap by 50%; Reduce time-to-market/risk for >100 new CCA Solutions from providers across Europe, offering them scale-up for their products.
Climate change (CC) is an increasing threat at European and global scale affecting social stability, public health, and well- being. The Mediterranean (Med) has been recognized as a CC hotspot and is among the least economically developed of the main EEA European biogeographical regions. Adapting to CC demands requires a radical shift from piecemeal to transformative strategies and approaches, supporting policy development at all levels and advancing transversal and multilevel governance solutions. Nature-based solutions (NbS) to preserve and restore ecosystems, increase climate resilience, sustainably manage the environment, while providing wider long-term socioeconomic benefits, are at the heart of the European CC Adaptation (CCA) Mission Adaptation Plan objective to support at least 150 European regions and communities to become climate resilient by 2030 and a main EUGD pillar. In DesirMED, NbS will be prioritized, together with innovative technologies and inclusive social practices. DesirMED will increase ambition, ownership and capability of regional Med leaders and communities through proven transformative CCA approaches. Recognising that successful adaptation generally occurs at local and regional levels, DesirMED involves a multilevel set of actors in 5 Demonstrating regions (DRr) and 3 Replicating Regions (RRs) working hand- in-hand with scientific partners to foster holistic approaches to implement transformative adaptation. DesirMED, by engaging at the regional level key institutions in a multi-level governance framework, will act as a catalyser to trigger and accelerate the necessary action in key community systems. Overall, DesirMED will strengthen knowledge and capabilities of Med regions and communities to take leadership and ownership in their transformative CCA pathways and accelerate the implementation of transformative solutions required to increase their resilience over the long term.
The HARMONY project aims to advance excellence in standardization by developing harmonized protocols for comprehensive disaster risk management, encompassing Prevention/Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery. Its core vision is to create a unified framework that transcends the current siloed approaches, enabling an integrated and coordinated assessment of impacts, risks, and interactions of climate-related and geological hazards across sectors and borders. By leveraging cutting-edge technologies and fostering collaboration among scientists, emergency responders, and policymakers among others, HARMONY seeks to enhance early warning systems, optimize response mechanisms, and support recovery strategies. This will contribute to building a climate-resilient society, capable of addressing the increasing intensity and frequency of disasters while minimizing their socio-economic impacts. By focusing on transnational collaboration, the project integrates novel technologies such as Earth observation, AI-driven predictive models, and GIS-based decision support systems. Large-scale pilot tests will be conducted in Spain-Portugal, Kosovo-North Macedonia, and Bulgaria-Greece, targeting climate-related and geological disasters including wildfires and floods. In addition, the project will build on a cohesive capacity building programme and replication guidelines to support scaling up of the proposed systemic approach across different areas in Europe.