REACHOUT project proposal selected by EU

Deltares and Climate Adaptation Services (CAS) submitted a major project proposal to the EU H2020 Green deal call in January. That REACHOUT proposal has now been selected. 

The subject is Developing end-user products and services for all stakeholders and citizens supporting climate adaptation and mitigation. This €5 million project will run for 3.5 years and probably start on 1 October. In addition to Deltares and CAS, the consortium consists of the following Dutch partners: SWECO, IVM (VU), Resilient City Network, C40 and the APG pension fund. The other partners are Technalia (Spain), Ecologic (Germany), Sendszimir Foundation (Poland), University College Cork (Ireland), NGI (Norway) and CMCC (Italy). Six European municipalities are also participating: Cork, Lillestrom, Milan, Gdynia, Logroño and Athens.

Objective

The aim of REACHOUT is to contribute to ‘climate-resilient urban development pathways’: the development of resilient, climate-neutral and adaptive cities. To achieve this, we plan to develop a ‘Triple-A toolbox’ in six City Hubs. These municipalities will act as drivers for further use in the region and in the cities involved with the Resilient City Network and C40. No City Hub from the Netherlands is participating but we are working with our partner APG to see how tools and data can support the development of climate-robust investments in the financial sector.

Triple-A approach

The Triple-A approach takes inspiration from the first three ambitions from the Dutch Spatial Adaptation Delta Plan: ‘describing vulnerability’ (stress test), ‘engaging in a risk dialogue and devising strategies’ and ‘drawing up an implementation agenda’[AS2] . These ambitions have been formulated as a three-step approach:

• Analysis: where are the vulnerabilities and what are the risks?
• Ambition: what has priority and what do we want to achieve?
• Action: how do we want to achieve this, with which measures?

Data service platforms

To conduct analyses and enable decision-making in the City Hubs, we will use different national, regional and European data service platforms. A number of the European data service platforms, in which the EU has invested heavily, are still being used to only a limited extent.

Toolbox

The steps from the Triple-A approach will be supported by various tools. These tools are designed to establish connections between users and data. The tools will be tested throughout the project and developed further in the six City Hubs. We will take existing tools, which are often the result of previous EU projects, as our starting point wherever possible. Ultimately, we will develop a Triple-A toolbox. That will be the principal project deliverable.

Upscaling

We will be scaling up the results from the pilot projects in the six City Hubs to various European cities that are part of the Resilient City Network and C40 networks. In that way, we hope that other cities in Europe will adopt the Triple-A approach. In addition, the Copernicus and GEOSS data platforms, and EU institutions such as JRC and the EEA, will be closely involved in the upscaling work.