The European IMPETUS project, coordinated by the Eurecat technology centre, has launched a public survey open to companies, local entities, industry, organisations and the public to have them take part in proposing and evaluating effective solutions to increase the Catalan coast’s ability to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

This survey provides the chance to pose and share ideas to have an influence on the outcome of the climate adaptation and mitigation solutions and actions that will be implemented, in line with stepping up Europe’s response to climate change.

In this project, Eurecat, the Government of Catalonia’s Ministry of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda (Departament d’Acció Climàtica, Alimentació i Agenda Rural – DACC), Rovira and Virgili University (URV), the University of Girona (UdG), the company Lobelia Earth and the IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation are leading the work to establish the transformation of climate commitments into actions in the specific case of the Catalan coast as a case study.

This initiative aims to ‘bring the project to the public, create a network for collaboration and generate solutions for the future and, therefore, we invite anyone with an interest in or knowledge about climate change and its local impacts to contribute to starting up this work’, says Aitor Corchero, the technical coordinator of IMPETUS and researcher in Eurecat’s Applied Artificial Intelligence Unit.

Vulnerable access point

The Catalan coast represents one of the seven biogeographical regions of Europe where innovative solutions will be tested and implemented to provide resilience to climate change, along with Latvia, Greece, Italy, Germany, Norway and the Netherlands.

The 900-km Catalan coast features a wide array of geographical and biodiversity systems that provide various ecosystem services. According to Carles Ibáñez, the scientific director of the Climate Resilience Centre and head of Eurecat’s Climate Change Line, the Catalan coast ‘is representative of other coastal and Mediterranean regions and becomes a vulnerable area at the limit as it is home to intense urbanisation, tourism, agriculture, critical infrastructures and industries, in other words, the coexistence of very important natural and social factors, activities and economic interests’.

Moreover, ‘the climate predictions indicate that existing problems will get worse as regards water availability, loss of biodiversity, flooding and salinisation of aquifers’, adds Xavier Martínez Lladó, the director of Eurecat’s Water, Air and Soil Unit.

Participation, part of the solution for climate change

Participating in the survey on the case of the Catalan coast will give the public, companies, industry, the media and civil society representatives opportunities to participate in different activities with multidisciplinary research teams and those responsible for environmental policies, with the aim of establishing a more permanent cooperative effort in Catalonia.

The successful solutions could have an influence on the drafting of local policy and set an example for other Spanish or European regions, help communities to be more resilient and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Local organisations, local approach

Eurecat is coordinating the project and leading the activities related to the coastal demonstration space as well as the development of digital technologies to create optimal strategies for adapting to the climate.

For its part, the DACC’s Catalan Office for Climate Change is participating in the development of activities, providing its experience in policy assessment and contributing to an effective and ongoing dialogue, at both local and supra-municipal level.

In terms of the universities, Rovira i Virgili University is focusing on innovative actions related to socio-economic solutions for sustainable tourism and the University of Girona is leading the work to conserve, restore and recover dune areas and participating in the project governance.

Lobelia Earth, a company headquartered in Barcelona and specialising in satellite technology, computational intelligence and data visualisation for climate action, evaluates and analyses climate risks and extracts information from satellite data on the air, soil, water and marine resources.

Finally, the IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation, located in Málaga, is responsible for assessing what will happen with the biodiversity of the coastal ecosystems in vulnerable areas of the Catalan coast given a climate change scenario.

Turning climate commitments into action

Financed by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme in the Green Deal call, IMPETUS aims to turn climate commitments into tangible and urgent actions to protect communities and the planet. The project consortium is made up of 32 organisations from nine European countries.

The four-year programme is part of a broader set of projects that support the European Union’s ambitions to become the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050. IMPETUS is working in close collaboration with the sister climate change projects REGILIENCE, ARSINOE and TransformAr.