Developing a European Clearinghouse on Climate

Change Impacts and Adaptation

Balázs Horváth

European Commission DG Environment

3rd EIONET workshop on Climate Change Impacts, Vulnerability and Adaptation

Copenhagen, 30 June 2009

White Paper on Adaptation to Climate Change

It is based on 4 Pillars

Pillar I: developing the knowledge base

”An effective way to improve knowledge management would be to establish a Clearinghouse Mechanism as an IT tool and database on climate change impact, vulnerability and best practices on adaptation.”

First version: 2011

Reasons

Scarce and fragmented information on CC impacts, vulnerability, costs-benefits and measures

Adaptation strategies need more spatially detailed information

Lack of information, knowledge and expertise in all institutional level

Lack of guidance to public authorities

Existing information is not shared across MS

Objectives

To enhance information structuring and sharing and act as a facilitator for collecting and disseminating scientific information, data and case studies about climate change impacts and vulnerability, to enable planned proactive and sustainable adaptation actions.

To support national, regional and local assessments of impacts of climate change, vulnerability assessments at different geographical levels and adaptation plans and measures by offering guidance, tools, best practices and providing a level-playing fields for EU, national, regional, local or sectoral decision makers.

Could also be used for …

… agreements on definitions and taxonomies

… systematic collection of reliable and up-to date information and data

… greater level of coordination among the relevant sectoral policies

Joint venture of DG ENV EEA and other EU institutions MSs

Some links to existing systems Biodiversity Clearinghouse Mechanism Climate Change Adaptation Clearinghouse will be co-ordinated with

reporting for EEA and EUROSTAT

with possible data exchange with JRC (Joint Research Centre) WISE (Water Information System for Europe)

developed in accordance with SEIS (Shared Environmental Information System) INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community) EEA EIONET / Reportnet

reporting data flows and rules, and it has to be compatible with GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) CLC (Corine land cover)

Topics to discuss with EIONET meeting

1. Content of the Clearinghouse

2. Level of knowledge integration

3. Link between Clearinghouse and national initiatives

4. Link with thematic tools

5. Potential users and language

Content of the Clearinghouse

1. Climate change observations and scenarios- Essential climate variables- Starting point FP6 ENSEMBLES, it will provide a comprehensive EU wide

dataset on CC scenarios and indicators- GMES can contribute more with providing observed trends- CH can contribute to lowering the level of uncertainty by

- Linking information on complex systems- Improving spatial or temporal resolution of observation data- Improving interaction between modelling and user community

2. Impacts, vulnerabilities- Exposure to impacts, sensitivity and adaptive capacity- Regional, sectoral and network perspective with considering socio-

economic and mitigation issues- Mapping; cost-benefit analysis- Knowledge base for taking decisions

Content of the Clearinghouse (2)

3. Measures, actions

- Assessment of their environmental, social, economic impacts

- Identifying no-regret measures

- FP5, 6 + Interreg projects (ADAM, CIRCE, AMICA etc.)

- Deeper analysis

4. Adaptation plans and strategies

- Providing practical tools for the development of adaptation policy

- List of institutions, projects, research activities

Other functions

Provides networking to existing and future thematic and regional networks and organisations (droughts, marine, forest fires, coastal zones, disasters)

Contributes to the implementation of the White Paper on Adaptation

Supports the coordination of future EU contributions to the UNFCCC Nairobi Work Programme

Questions to EIONET meeting Content of the Clearinghouse

1. Do you agree with the content mentioned above? What are the priorities?

2. Is there any additional information needed?

Level of knowledge integration

1st phase web-enabled system would enhance information structuring and sharing and act

as a facilitator for collecting and disseminating information sources, documents, data and case studies,

linked to EU vulnerability indicators and a database of adaptation measures and to specific guidelines covering the whole process of adaptation policy

both substantive information and links to existing web sites (i.e. portal role)

Level of knowledge integration (2)

2nd phase include detailed analytical tools for using the information in the

database at expert level, and for visualisation purposes. it would be INSPIRE and SEIS compliant it would allow the user to query the actions and measures

database and its content along specific criteria by means of interactive maps (e.g. GIS coordinates, landscape types,

extreme events, coasts, geographical units) climate change impacts and vulnerability (e.g. droughts, floods) environmental themes (e.g. biodiversity, soil) local, regional, national and EU sectors and policies (e.g. agriculture, water

(service, shipping, hydropower), health) types of actions and measures (e.g. flood management, drought and water

scarcity management options). the Clearinghouse would integrate EU wide tools/models such as

ENSEMBLES, GMES and other EU-wide sectoral information This would be complementary to national or regional tools

Level of knowledge integration (3)

The Clearinghouse would not be a mechanism to generate new data but rather rely on data generated and produced by other sources; however it needs to be a knowledge generating mechanism, already during the first phase.

Two levels of ambition can be envisaged:

The Clearinghouse should contain more than a pure result of collection and dissemination of existing data. It should put the data together in a comparable way, albeit given the use of different sources, total comparability may rarely be achieved. It should also carry out a quality assessment of that data and screen it according to very clear quality criteria which are made known to the users.

However it could be envisaged to go further, including a normalisation of the information exchanged and providing recommendations on the use of data (e.g. scenarios) and methods (e.g. vulnerability indicators, assessment of costs and impacts of adaptation measures, etc.)

Questions to EIONET meeting Level of knowledge integration

3. What is your opinion on the phased approach? How consistent is it with your own projects for developing the knowledge base on CC impacts, vulnerability and adaptation?

4. By when should the Clearinghouse go beyond a portal of information? How far should it go in terms of consistency and comparability of the information?

National initiatives

Finland Climate Change Community Response Portal

UK CIP

Netherlands, PCCC

Sweden, Klimatanpassningsportalen

Germany, KomPass

France, Observatoire national sur les effets du réchauffement climatique (ONERC)

Norway web-based information platform, “Norwegian Climate Adaptation Programme”. 

Link between CH and national initiatives

Option 1: Complementary application strictly limit the scope and level of ambition to offer

added value to national initiatives e.g. trans-national impacts or information portal role

Option 2: Front-runner application of SEIS technical framework built on EU-wide, national and

local sources Cost-effective solution ensuring consistency of

climate scenarios between e.g. neighbouring countries

Questions to EIONET meeting Link between Clearinghouse and national initiatives

5. Could you report on additional national initiatives that fit partially or totally with the scope of the Clearinghouse, could contribute to or benefit from it?

6. Which option(s) would you support for the integration of the national systems/platforms and the EU Clearinghouse?

Link with thematic tools

Existing thematic tools, like: WISE, Water Information System for Europe, the Forest Fires Data Centre, the JRC Floods Portal European Community Biodiversity Clearing House Mechanism,

supporting the Convention on Biological Diversity Planned thematic tools, like:

the exchange platform on Integrated Coastal Zone Management OURCOAST

the European Drought Observatory the European Marine Observation and Data Network

(EMODNET), Actions in the field of developing knowledge-based prevention

policies

Link with thematic tools (2)

The Clearinghouse initially would provide mainly links to those other systems, but gradually could integrate information from these systems into the Clearinghouse.

Data and information on the adaptation to climate change is available in different databases on different levels across Europe. Most of these databases were created for different purposes than storing and disseminating information on climate change.

Some of those databases contain data on adaptation to climate change in such a structured and easily accessible way that there is no need to include that information into the Clearinghouse.

For others, the extraction of adaptation-relevant information could be a resource-consuming process and its cost-effectiveness needs to be carefully assessed.

Coordination with FP7 and national research programmes to feed into CH process in a cost-effective way

Questions to EIONET meeting Link with thematic tools

7. How would you see the integration of the EU Clearinghouse with thematic platforms already established, e.g. WISE, Biodiversity clearinghouse, etc.

8. What kind of other thematic information, tools should be included?

Potential users

European Commission and agencies

Member states

Regional and local authorities

Researcher/academics

Practitioners (consultants, NGOs, Industry, etc.)

Citizens

EU Clearinghouse management and quality control

Language

National languages or multilinguism

Multilinguism does not mean translating of thousands of reports

Maps of impacts or evaluation of assessment measures etc. could be introduced with a help of linguistic « masks »

It requires agreed definitions, taxonomies, GIS standards, methodologies etc.

going beyond a simple portal with links

Questions to EIONET meeting Potential users and language

9. Is there a need for multiple levels of communication with the Clearinghouse (e.g. simplified public interface or restricted area for MS etc.)?

10. To what extent should there be a multilingual approach for the Clearinghouse?

Next steps

Reactions of MS – period for written reactions

Defining next steps until 2011 (DG ENV, EEA, JRC, Eurostat)

Open call for tender for 1st phase development in Oct 2009

Discussing governance and operating structure

Further discussions with MS later in 2009 on

Integration with national initiatives

The way CH could contribute to policy coordination initiatives of adaptation measures and strategies

‘Preparations for the establishment of European Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Clearinghouse – Sharing of good practice in the EU’

This project is the scoping phase of the Clearinghouse – will be followed by other contracts to set up the system

Task A – Defining the concept, structure and scope of the Clearinghouse – going beyond policies deployed explicitly as climate change adaptation

Task B – Assessment of possibilities for the software/system, web interface and data structure

Task C – Listing and categorizing relevant information sources, data and case studies to fill the clearing house database

End user survey results

Online survey for several weeks

338 respondents

National (23%), regional (14%) and European (13%) level respondents

Public sector (36%) and academic level (18%)

Results of end user survey

1. Organisation of CH+ sectoral, theme specific, European scale

- international scale

2. Topics for CH+ climate impacts, vulnerability, adaptation strategies, CC risks, measures of

adaptation

- awareness raising, find similar organizations

3. Formats of the information+ indicators, online structured library and keyword search, downloadable

images, maps and graphs

- blog or discussion area

4. Use of CH+ to keep up to date with developments across EU, to download information,

to have access to good practise adaptation measures

- discussion forum, stakeholders identification

5. Ideal CH