Sharing skills and needs between providers and users of climate information to create climate services: lessons from the Northern Adriatic case study

Abstract

The need to cope with the expected impacts of climate change on socio-ecological systems calls for a closer dialogue between climate scientists and the community of climate information users. We describe an interactive process designed to bridge this gap by establishing a two-way communication, based on mutual learning. We analyse the need of climate information for the integrated assessment of climate change impacts on the coastal zone of the Northern Adriatic Sea, which is considered to be particularly vulnerable to several climate-related phenomena, e.g. heavy rainfall events, pluvial flood, and sea level rise, causing potentially high damage to coastal ecosystems and urban areas (e.g. acqua alta in the Venice Lagoon). A participatory process was designed engaging representatives from both the scientific and local stakeholders communities, and facilitated by a boundary organization, embodied by the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change. End-users of climate information (e.g. decision makers belonging to public institutions) were selected among representatives of those public institutions having a specific mandate for Integrated Coastal Zone Management, and engaged to identify their needs. During the early stages of the interaction process, several priorities were identified, including: (1) data to support land-use planning, (2) data with greater resolution and longer time series, (3) data on climate impacts and risks, (4) precipitation patterns to improve irrigation, (5) sea level rise and tides, (6) climate variations and extreme events, (7) seasonal trend for tidal waves, and (8) hydraulic risk. Three climate products were developed to address these needs: (1) short-term projections of sea level rise; (2) seasonal predictions of extreme rainfall events; (3) long-term regional projections of climate extremes (including heat waves, dry spells and heavy rainfall events). Additionally, two risk products were developed: 4) sea level rise inundation risk maps for the low-lying coastal areas of Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia regions; and 5) pluvial flood risk maps for the urban territory of the municipality of Venice.