The RESIST (Regions for climate change RESilience through innovation, Science and Technology) project was selected as part of the call for projects issued by Horizon Europe's Adaptation to climate change mission, and brings together 56 organisations from 14 countries. Four demonstration regions are taking part in the project, and will be deploying nature-based solutions in response to 5 climate challenges:
- Floods
- Droughts
- Heat waves
- Forest fires
- Soil erosion
DEMONSTRATOR REGIONS AND DIGITAL TWINS TO TEST SOLUTIONS
Officially launched on 5 January 2023 for a period of 5 years, RESIST will then enable knowledge to be shared with other regions affected differently by climate change, to build their resilience to its impacts. Each region that implements the solutions is twinned with two other similar regions in Europe: the Normandy Region will share the knowledge gained from the project directly with a region in the south-west of Finland, which is a demonstrator and faces problems of soil erosion and heavy rainfall, and with a Greek region. The Normandy Region is particularly interested in the resilience of the region to the impact of intense rainfall.
Pilot sites will be selected to deploy nature-based solutions and monitor them through cooperation between academia, the public and private sectors, and citizens.
Digital twins that recreate the environment of the four demonstration regions will be used to carry out simulations and test the effectiveness of the various nature-based solutions (NBS), as well as sharing data and knowledge, particularly with the decision-making authorities.
The effective solutions deployed as part of the project should be able to be disseminated and implemented at reasonable cost. The 4 demonstration regions are:
- Central Denmark and South-West Finland: the main issues are water and soil erosion. Extreme climatic events are on the increase and rising sea levels are having an increasingly visible impact.
- The regions of southern Europe, Catalonia and central Portugal, are facing problems of flooding, drought, heat waves and forest fires.
Work in progress is focusing on identifying and structuring in situ experiments in pilot areas. At the same time, the construction of digital twins is being launched as part of a co-construction approach between the project partners, in line with the needs identified in the regions.
EXPERIMENTING WITH NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS IN NORMANDY
Cerema is working alongside the Normandy Region and the French Biodiversity Office to identify and provide scientific, technical and management support for experimental approaches to implementing nature-based solutions. These will be tested in one or more areas of Normandy in response to the following issues:
- Towards a permeable city and an integrated approach to nature in the city: the renaturation of artificial spaces to improve resilience in the face of climate change.
- Strengthening the resilience of industrial areas to the risks of run-off and flooding, which can lead to accidental pollution.
- Developing coordinated management solutions at catchment scale, providing a coherent response to the challenge of changing rainfall patterns and their consequences: increased runoff, seasonal imbalances.