A HORIZON Innovation project funded by the European Union under Grant Agreement No. 101157448 started on May 1, 2024 and will run until April 30, 2028. The project’s Raison d'être is: “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 revolutionize infrastructure by integrating it with nature. It covers critical sectors (e.g., transport and energy) and engages an alliance of infrastructure owners, scientists from industry and academia, and public authorities.”

The project aims at 5 objectives focusing on nature-based Solutions (NbS):

1. Identify and Parameterize NbS for Protecting Critical Infrastructure

2. Develop a Multi-Scale Decision Support Tool Integrating NbS with Digital Inference

3. Demonstrate the Effectiveness of NbS in Increasing Climate-Resilience of Critical Infrastructure

4. Mainstream NbS for Resilient, Climate-Proof Infrastructure

5. Increase NbS Climate Resilience and Adaptation Capacity of Involved Regions, Authorities, and Communities

Among natural hazards that are included into the projects are climatological, meteorological, hydrological, landslide, and snow hazards. Sediments, their movement from sources to sinks within the erosion and sedimentation cycle are an inherent part of before mentioned hazards, especially hydrological ones, and will therefore be incorporated into the project. Sediments will be especially studied as they are impacting water infrastructure as a special type of critical infrastructure to be climate-resilient itself, and that also helps to make other types of critical infrastructure climate-resilient and safe under climate changes.

There are 23 project partners from 13 European countries – 8 partners are from UNESCO Group I – Western Europe and North America, and 5 partners are from Group II – Eastern Europe partners.  More details about the project are available on the project’s web pages.

Reference:

https://nature-demo.eu/

Matja? Miko? (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia; ISI Group II: Eastern European States Regional Coordinator & Thematic Priority 2 Sediment-related Disaster Risk Reduction WG Co-Leader)