Impacts of climate change
The impacts of climate change on people, the planet and prosperity are intensifying. Many regions and communities are struggling to avoid losses and need to improve their climate resilience. Ongoing natural capital degradation also leads to growing costs, increased vulnerability, and decreased stability of key systems. Therefore, the European Mission on Adaptation acknowledges the necessity of adopting a systemic approach by working across sectors and disciplines, experimenting, and involving regional communities.
An innovative and practical approach
NBRACER steps up to this challenge with an innovative and practical approach to accelerate the transformation towards climate-resilient regions that are safe, green, clean, healthy, and just. Adaptation will be based on the smart packaging of nature-based solutions, rooted in the resources supplied by different landscape characteristics (coastal, urban, rural), and embedded in a transformative action approach that mobilises and enables regions and communities to accelerate forward.
Regional Demonstrators
The project has a focus on regions within the Atlantic biogeographical area to envision, co-design, demonstrate and upscale sustainable nature-based solutions (NBS) through 5 Demonstrating regions (Porto, Cantabria, Central Denmark, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, West Flanders) and 3 Replication regions (Cávado, East Flanders and Friesland). This process is supported by a regional scale effort to build adaptation journeys with community support, and testing and validating NBS solution portfolios addressing the different landscapes. Innovative time and place-specific adaptation and transformation pathways will be developed. Moreover, capacity building and networking will enable the collaborative process of regional transformation towards resilience.
The consortium of 30 partners from 8 countries, led by Deltares, builds synergy from the strength of practitioners, ecosystem engineers, innovators of transformative adaptation, finance, and capacity-building experts. NBRACER will be running in the period 2023 – 2027. Wageningen University & Research will participate in it as part of its strategic programme Green Climate Solutions. People from the Team Regional Development and Spatial Use are leading the activities of NBS demonstrations in Urban systems and will support regions to innovate for effective governance models that enable the regions to transform, covering social, financial and economic aspects as well.
We believe that the well-balanced consortium of regional and municipal governments, businesses, and knowledge institutes will be the key to successfully moving regions towards climate resilience.
Tim van Hattum (WUR programme leader Green Climate Solutions, NL2120)