SO 2.4 : Promoting climate change adaptation and disaster risk prevention and resilience, taking into account ecosystem-based approaches

SO 2.4 Climate adaptation and disaster risk prevention

Territorial challenges and opportunities

Rising temperatures resulting from climate change tend to aggravate natural disaster risks and water management challenges, exposing the North-West Europe (NWE) region to greater local climate variability, negatively affecting human health and safety. Large territories within the NWE Programme area are affected by natural disaster risks and water management concerns. The Programme seeks to promote climate change adaptation, disaster risk prevention, and resilience considering ecosystem-based approaches.

Objectives

Within this Specific Objective, the Programme aims to support projects that:
• Implement climate and environmental resilience, adaptation, and mitigation measures to address natural risk management, disaster response and sustainable water management challenges.
• Embed adaptation and mitigation measures into territorial strategies and local initiatives to reduce or prevent severe negative effects of weather phenomena (e.g., floods, drought, or heavy rain).
• Implement climate and environmental resilience, adaptation, and mitigation measures, and disaster response through integrated place-based solutions and multimodal mobility and / or spatial planning processes.

Discover the related themes

Develop green/blue infrastructure to ensure the protection or restoration of ecosystems and prevent the loss of biodiversity and natural capita

BUFFER+

BUFFER carbon + water in peatlands: landscape-based solutions for climate adaptation

Wet and healthy peatlands have a strong natural potential to save carbon and, due to their water buffering capacity, play an important role in managing periods of excessive rains or droughts. Yet, in NWE regions large areas of peatlands are drained f...

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ResiRiver

Creating Resilient River Systems by Mainstreaming and Upscaling NbS

Resilient River or ‘ResiRiver’ for short, is a project focusing on the creation of Resilient River Systems through mainstreaming and upscaling of Nature-based Solutions (NbS). In North-West Europe (NWE), river systems are facing significant challenge...

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MigFoRest

Assisted Migration to increase Forest resilience in NWE

Humanity largely depends on the ecosystem services provided by forests. They need to be protected from the increasing disturbances caused by climate change. Forests represent significant proportion of NWE land (23% in Belgium, 27% in France, 32% in G...

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Project news

Climate change adaptation and disaster risk prevention and resilience, taking into account ecosystem-based approaches

With SO 2.4 the Programme expects to contribute to making the NWE communities more resilient and able to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change in the long term. Combating climate change effects represents one of the main territorial challenges for the cooperation area. The NWE area has suffered from extreme weather and climate related events, and a considerable number consisted of floods, causing losses of all types. In the future, risks related to climate change, such as flooding, drought, and decreased river navigability, demand better preparation and coordinated disaster response based on effective territorial cooperation. The increase in the frequency of severely dry and wet periods caused by climate change has led to the need for sustainable water consumption and management. The NWE area faces significant challenges both in terms of water quality and availability . The large majority of water bodies in the NWE area are not in good chemical and ecological status, even though the NWE area is relatively rich in annual renewable freshwater resources. However, water management is problematic due to the increase in the frequency of severely dry and wet periods caused by climate change.

The Programme shall contribute to the objective of the European Green Deal (COM (2019) 640 final) to make Europe the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050. It also feeds into the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 on climate action.
Grants are the selected form of support for this SO. The size of planned operations, and the type of cooperation of target groups beyond national borders, allow for very limited use of support other than grants. In addition, planned operations will not generate significant revenue.