The VALORADA project is pleased to announce the publication of its second Policy Brief, entitled “Making Climate Data Usable: the Need for Place-Based Knowledge.”  

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/ 

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