BASE

BASE project aims to foster sustainable adaptation in Europe by improving the knowledge base on adaptation and making this information easier to access, understand and act upon. Specifically, BASE will: Compile and analyse data and information on adaptation measures and their effectiveness towards a publicly available comprehensive, integrated knowledge base. This includes analysis of social and economic benefits, sectoral adaptation costs, and policy making implications. Improve and develop new assessment methods and tools for assessing climate impacts, vulnerabilities, risks and policies. Identify conflicts and synergies at different policy levels as well as between and within sectors to highlight strategies for improving policy coherence and effectiveness. Integrate bottom-up knowledge with top-down processes through innovative approaches to assess the effectiveness, costs and benefits of adaptation strategies at different scales. Bridge the gap between specific assessments of adaptation measures and ‘top down’ implementation of comprehensive and integrated strategies. Increase the integration of local knowledge and perceptions of adaptation pathways through novel participatory methods and deliberative tools to create co-designed and effective adaptation strategies. Disseminate project results to policy makers, practitioners and other stakeholders to increase awareness of the impacts, costs and benefits of climate adaptation for effective and sustainable adaptation strategies through tools such as Climate-ADAPT

The BASE project supported adaptation planning and implementation across Europe by providing interdisciplinary evaluation of costs, benefits, effectiveness, challenges and opportunities of adaptation across urban, rural, water, agriculture and health sectors. In addition, BASE provided strategic support to the European Commission’s strategy on adaptation to climate change. This was achieved by reinforcing the knowledge base and offering tools to steer decision-making on adaptation towards a sustainable Europe. Project outcomes also supplied information to CLIMATE-ADAPT, an EU initiative that helps users to access and share data and information on adaptation. Knowledge does not always flow well between top-down and bottom-up processes. Hence, the team set out to establish effective communication lines between, for example, EU decision-makers and local farmers. Project partners also explored comparable climate change adaptation case studies throughout Europe to accumulate the knowledge and understanding required at the local level. Researchers provided six climate and socioeconomic scenarios that were appropriate for the comparable case studies. They covered coastal zones, agriculture and forestry, water resources, human settlements and infrastructure, biodiversity and ecosystems, and health. Economic assessments were made for the short, medium and long terms by reviewing methods that could integrate uncertainty (such as the adaptation pathways).