Climate Proofing Urban Municipalities (UrbanProof)
LIFE UrbanProof proposes a holistic and highly automated approach for supporting municipalities to assess climate change related vulnerabilities and risks, to explore and evaluate the available adaptation options and to develop adaptation strategies, as well as to monitor climate change, vulnerabilities and adaptation. In the framework of this project the proposed methodology will be applied in four municipalities in Cyprus, Greece and Italy, where vulnerability assessments will be conducted and adaptation strategies will be developed.
The overall aim of the UrbanProof project is to increase the resilience of municipalities to climate change equipping them with a powerful tool for supporting better informed decision making on climate change adaptation planning which will (i) provide insight into the expected changes in climate, (ii) enhance understanding on climate change impacts and on the mechanisms defining vulnerability, (iii) enable the exploration and evaluation of the available adaptation options and, (iv) provide guidance for monitoring the adaptation process. The project objectives at action level are:
- To develop, implement and demonstrate an innovative and interactive decision support tool (UrbanProof toolkit) for urban adaptation planning, which will provide local decision makers, stakeholders and target groups with access to visual information (in the form of maps and graphs) on climate change, vulnerability, adaptation and monitoring and, will guide them, step-by-step, through the whole adaptation process;
- To develop local adaptation strategies for the partner municipalities (total population: 413.000; total area: 29.600 ha);
- To bridge the gap between scientific and local understanding of climate change;
- To provide information on the future climate changes at local level;
- To identify the impacts and evaluate the vulnerabilities of the partner municipalities to climate change;
- To enhance public involvement and participation in adaptation planning;
- To identify, evaluate and prioritize adaptation options;
- To implement, demonstrate and promote green and soft adaptation measures at the partner municipalities in order to increase public awareness on climate change adaptation;
- To promote the adoption of the proposed methodology and adaptation options in order to maximize transferability and replicability;
- To provide detailed guidance in order for other municipalities to employ the proposed methodology;
- To promote public awareness on climate change and on the associated risks for the municipalities as well as on the available options for addressing them;
- To achieve social and political approval of the adaptation strategies to be developed;
- To gain public acceptance and to ensure continuity and economic sustainability of the proposed adaptation strategy;
- To ensure active participation and engagement of local stakeholders during the implementation of the adaptation strategy.