The article represents a major collaborative effort bringing together expertise from more than 30 European projects working on climate adaptation, climate services, and resilience-building across Europe. Developed within the framework of the Working Group on Climate Services of the MIP4Adapt Community of Practice, the publication reflects VALORADA’s active contribution to advancing knowledge and practical solutions for climate adaptation under the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change.

The publication was co-developed with contributions from leading European organisations and research institutions, including GERICS, CMCC, ECMWF and EARSC, alongside numerous Horizon Europe projects and climate adaptation initiatives.

Addressing a Key Challenge for Climate Adaptation

As climate impacts intensify across Europe and globally, climate services are becoming increasingly important tools for supporting evidence-based decision-making. These services provide climate-related data, forecasts, indicators, tools, and guidance that can help public authorities, businesses, researchers, and communities anticipate and respond to climate risks.

However, while many climate services have demonstrated strong local or sectoral value, scaling them up and transferring them to other contexts remains a major challenge. Solutions that prove effective in one region or sector are often difficult to replicate elsewhere due to differences in governance structures, institutional capacities, territorial specificities, user needs, and available datasets.

The newly published article addresses this challenge directly by exploring how climate services can be:

• transferred to new territories and organisations;
• replicated across different governance or socio-economic contexts;
• extended to additional sectors or user communities;
• institutionalised to ensure long-term sustainability and operational uptake.

The publication also proposes a shared conceptual framework to better understand and support the upscaling process, helping bridge existing gaps between local experimentation and broader implementation across Europe.

VALORADA’s Contribution to More Scalable and Actionable Climate Services

Through its involvement in this collaborative initiative, VALORADA contributes to ongoing European efforts to strengthen the usability, scalability, and long-term impact of climate services. The project’s participation reflects its broader ambition to support regional and local authorities in assessing climate risks, improving adaptation planning, and facilitating the uptake of actionable climate intelligence.

By fostering collaboration between research institutions, climate service providers, policymakers, and territorial stakeholders, the initiative also contributes to the objectives of the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change and the wider European climate resilience agenda.

The article further highlights the importance of cooperation across projects and disciplines to accelerate learning, avoid fragmentation, and promote shared methodologies capable of supporting adaptation efforts at scale.

Access the Publication

The full article is available here.

The article, developed with contributions from GERICS, presents VALORADA’s innovative approach to revealing the climate-adaptation value of locally sourced datasets. While municipalities and regions routinely generate large volumes of socio-economic, demographic, environmental, land use, infrastructure and satellite data, these datasets often remain underused in climate adaptation processes despite their significant potential to support local resilience planning. 

VALORADA addresses this challenge by demonstrating that climate adaptation does not solely depend on producing more climate data, but also on making existing local data meaningful, accessible and actionable for decision-makers. 

By connecting climate information with datasets already collected and managed by local authorities, VALORADA contributes to the development of climate services that are better aligned with users’ needs and operational realities. The project ultimately seeks to support administrations in moving from fragmented data landscapes towards more informed, transparent and collectively justified adaptation decisions. 

The full article is available here.

The Bulgarian demonstrator highlights how two territories with different geographical and climatic conditions (coastal Burgas and mountainous Gabrovo) can address diverse risks such as flooding, heatwaves, drought and wildfires. By combining climate projections, Earth Observation data and municipal datasets, VALORADA enables a more comprehensive understanding of vulnerabilities and supports more effective risk management. 

Through the co-development of Climate Impact Chains, tailored indicators and operational dashboards, the project helps local authorities move from fragmented data to a unified, decision-ready evidence base. This approach strengthens preparedness, supports planning processes and contributes to more resilient local policies. 

The methodology developed within VALORADA demonstrates strong potential for replication across European regions facing multiple and interconnected climate risks. 

 Read the short and long version on VALORADA website: https://valorada-project.eu/downloads/ 

For more information about the project and its activities, follow VALORADA on LinkedIn and YouTube.

The Occitanie experience demonstrates how regional and local stakeholders can better manage challenges related to heatwaves, drought and water scarcity by combining climate, Earth Observation and socio-economic data. Through the development of tailored indicators and user-oriented dashboards, VALORADA supports more effective decision-making across both urban and agricultural sectors. 

By transforming complex datasets into actionable insights, this approach contributes to more targeted adaptation strategies and improved resilience. The methodology developed within VALORADA shows strong potential for replication across European regions facing similar climate challenges. 

Read the short and long version on VALORADA website: https://valorada-project.eu/downloads/ 

For more information about the project and its activities, follow VALORADA on LinkedIn and YouTube.

Entitled “The Untapped Power of Existing Data for Effective Climate Adaptation”, the event showcased how climate, Earth Observation and locally sourced data can support evidence-based decision-making and strengthen regional and local climate resilience.

Participants explored VALORADA’s key results and lessons learned, including the development of operational climate-risk tools, experiences from demonstrator regions across Europe, and opportunities for scaling up climate services and knowledge exchange.

The event also provided an opportunity to discuss how future EU initiatives can continue supporting user-oriented and scalable adaptation solutions.

As the project approaches its conclusion in May 2026, VALORADA will continue sharing its tools, results and recommendations with the wider climate adaptation community.

Read the full press release here.

For more information about the project and its activities, follow VALORADA on LinkedIn and YouTube.

The Czech demonstrator highlights how local authorities can better understand and address climate risks such as heatwaves, flooding and drought by combining climate data, Earth Observation and local information. Through the co-design of indicators and the development of operational dashboards, VALORADA supports more informed urban planning and risk management. 

This experience demonstrates how data-driven approaches can enhance local resilience, particularly in urban environments facing increasing climate pressures. The methodology developed within VALORADA is designed to be transferable to other European cities seeking to strengthen their adaptation strategies. 

Read the short and long version on VALORADA website: https://valorada-project.eu/downloads/  

For more information about the project and its activities, follow the project on LinkedIn and YouTube. 

Co-developed with demonstrator regions and refined through stakeholder feedback, these tools are now fully operational and accessible. They provide users with interactive dashboards for territorial analysis, as well as a centralised metadata catalogue ensuring transparency on data sources and methodologies. 

Covering eight territories across five European countries, the tools demonstrate how data-driven approaches can support climate resilience in diverse regional contexts and offer scalable solutions for wider uptake across Europe. 

If you are interested in data-driven approaches to climate risk and adaptation, do not hesitate to familiarise with the VALORADA tools. 

 Read the full press release here.

For more information about the project and its activities, follow the project on LinkedIn and YouTube. 

This publication provides policy-relevant insights on how to improve the usability of climate data by integrating place-based knowledge, local value systems and participatory approaches into climate risk assessments and adaptation processes. It highlights the need to complement technical and scientific data with local perspectives to support effective, context-specific decision-making at regional and local levels.  

Key policy messages 

The Policy Brief identifies several key policy considerations to strengthen the role of data in climate adaptation: 

• Promote participatory methods that bring the social values and perceptions of local communities into climate risk assessments and EU-level projects.  

• Support tools and platforms that combine quantitative datasets with place-based qualitative knowledge, such as local narratives, stakeholder-defined thresholds and historical context.  

• Foster capacity-building initiatives enabling local and regional authorities to engage in value-based climate risk assessment and systems thinking.  

• Ensure that EU data and climate policy frameworks fully consider human perspectives and social interactions in the valuation and use of datasets.  

• Encourage long-term co-creation processes involving local stakeholders and embed local values more systematically in project calls and evaluation criteria.  

Towards more inclusive and actionable climate adaptation 

The findings presented in this Policy Brief demonstrate that climate data alone is not sufficient to fully understand and address climate risks. As highlighted in the document, local perceptions, value systems and place-based characteristics play a critical role in shaping how risks are identified, prioritised and managed.  

The VALORADA project shows that combining climate projections, Earth Observation data and socio-economic datasets with local knowledge significantly improves the relevance, legitimacy and usability of climate risk assessments. This approach helps bridge the gap between scientific data and real-world decision-making. 

In particular, the project introduces tools such as Climate Impact Chains, data valuation frameworks and resilience information catalogues, which support local authorities in transforming fragmented datasets into actionable knowledge.  

Read the full Policy Brief 

Read the full Policy Brief on VALORADA website: https://valorada-project.eu/downloads/ 

For more information about the project and its activities, follow the project on LinkedIn and YouTube. 

This three-day meeting brought together project partners, representatives from the European Commission, local demonstrators and key stakeholders to review achievements, consolidate results and prepare the project’s legacy beyond its lifetime. 

Day 1: Reviewing progress and consolidating results 

The first day focused on a comprehensive overview of progress across all Work Packages. Discussions covered the identification of climate data service gaps across Europe, the assessment of VALORADA tools usability, and the development and implementation of climate risk indicators across demonstrators. 

Partners also addressed best practices and capacity-building resources for local stakeholders, as well as progress on dissemination, exploitation and the long-term impact of project results. These exchanges ensured that VALORADA’s outputs are robust, actionable and aligned with the needs of regional and local authorities. 

Day 2: Demonstrators’ insights and lessons learned 

The second day centred on reflection and forward-looking discussions. The five VALORADA demonstrators  (Central Greece, Molise (Italy), Occitanie (France), Přerov and Mladá Boleslav (Czech Republic), and Burgas and Gabrovo (Bulgaria)) presented their main achievements and shared insights on the tools, knowledge and capacities developed through the project. 

A dedicated session on lessons learned enabled partners to collectively identify key successes, challenges and areas for improvement. The afternoon included exchanges with the Advisory Board, providing valuable external perspectives to strengthen the project’s final outputs and recommendations. 

Day 3: Final event and project closure 

The third and final day featured the VALORADA final event, entitled “The Untapped Power of Existing Data for Effective Climate Adaptation.” Bringing together around 50 participants, the event highlighted how climate, Earth Observation and local data can be leveraged to support evidence-based decision-making at regional and local levels, in line with the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change. 

Participants explored the project’s key results and lessons learned, the integration of climate and EO data into operational tools, and the experiences of local demonstrators. Discussions also addressed the challenges and opportunities related to scaling up climate services, as well as the importance of capacity-building and knowledge exchange. 

Interactive exchanges further emphasised the need to bridge the gap between scientific knowledge and practical implementation, supporting the transition from data to action in climate adaptation. 

Towards a lasting impact 

The VALORADA Final General Assembly highlighted the importance of collaboration, co-design and data integration in strengthening climate resilience across Europe. The project’s results demonstrate the potential of combining climate data, Earth Observation and local knowledge to support more effective and context-specific adaptation strategies. 

The consortium extends its sincere thanks to all participants, including representatives of the European Commission and members of the Advisory Board, for their valuable contributions and continued engagement. Special appreciation is also extended to EIT House for hosting the event. 

As the project concludes, VALORADA leaves behind a strong foundation of tools, knowledge and best practices to support climate adaptation efforts across European regions and cities.

For more information about the project and its activities, follow the project on LinkedIn and YouTube. 

The Molise experience demonstrates how co-designed indicators and integrated dashboards can help regional authorities better understand vulnerabilities related to droughts, flooding, soil degradation and coastal risks. By combining climate and socio-economic data into a single system, VALORADA supports more informed, evidence-based decision-making and strengthens regional resilience. 

The methodology developed within VALORADA shows strong potential for replication, particularly in Mediterranean and other European regions facing similar climate pressures. 

 Read the short and long version on VALORADA website: https://valorada-project.eu/downloads/ 

For more information about the project and its activities, follow the project on LinkedIn and YouTube.