AQUACROSS seeks to expand current knowledge and foster the practical application of the ecosystem-based management (EBM) concept for all aquatic (freshwater, coastal, and marine) ecosystems (as a continuum) by contributing to the development of robust and cost-effective responses integrated management practices, and innovative business models addressing current and future changes in major drivers and pressures, integrated management practices, and innovative business models (Fig. 1). It thereby provides an unprecedented effort for seeking synergies and overcoming barriers between policy objectives, concepts, knowledge, data streams, and management approaches for freshwater, coastal, and marine ecosystems to support the timely achievement of the targets set out by the EU 2020 Biodiversity Strategy and the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity (2012-2020) adopted at COP10 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

The ASSETS project aims to explicitly quantify the linkages between ecosystem services that affect – and are affected by – food security and nutritional health for the rural poor at the forest-agricultural interface. The project proposes to integrate a suite of complexity tools and cutting edge models with more traditional participatory assessments in the field within a modified version of the Drivers-Pressures-States-Impacts-Response methodological framework to: identify how dynamic stocks and flows of ecosystem services at the landscape scale translate to local-level nutritional diets and health; and inform policy makers on how future land use and climate change will affect both food security and the ecosystem services associated with it.

Mountains are among the ecosystems most affected by climate change. Still, there are many gaps in our understanding of climate change impacts on nature and human well-being, especially in the remote and vulnerable mountain regions. Climate change in mountain regions is diverse, and often extreme. Adaptation capacity of these communities is often low due to multiple barriers including lack of resources, limited education, and high exposure to natural hazards. At the same time, mountain tourism is becoming a challenge for these areas including new problems related to garbage disposal and threatening the cultural identity of communities.

Climate change can disrupt ecological, social and economic systems, with some regions and sectors suffering significantly. Therefore, adaptation plays a paramount role in responding to climate change. Progress has been made, but there are still important obstacles. Knowledge of the benefits and costs of adaptation is sparse, unsystematic and unevenly distributed across sectors and countries. Planning suffers from substantial uncertainties in terms of precise impacts. It is also difficult to reconcile the bottom-up nature of adaptation with top-down strategic policy making on adaptation

BRODISE project wants to mobilize public and private purchasers and networks of cities in the field of soil decontamination, not (just) to networking and to create awareness, but to put the innovation process in action, to understand in-depth the technology state of the art and the innovation gap to be addressed  by significant R&D, to structure and design a joint R&D procurement initiative, leveraging the complementarity of the consortium partners to bring together the demand in order to create a critical mass to acquire cost effective  and  innovative  solutions,  whilst  creating new  jobs  and  opportunities  for  business  growth  in  Europe, with particular reference to SMEs.

El cambio global que amenaza muchos ecosistemas hace que sea crítico entender los impactos a nivel funcional que tienen distintas perturbaciones. Muchas de estas perturbaciones llevan a cambios en la composición de especies en las comunidades, a través de la extinción de especies locales o de la invasión por especies nóveles. Como consecuencia, las comunidades se reorganizan, pudiendo verse afectadas las interacciones entre distintas especies. Investigaciones previas han mostrado que en respuesta a la pérdida de una especie las demás pueden cambiar su rol funcional, es decir, estos roles serían dinámicos. Sin embargo, aún desconocemos el efecto modulador del contexto ecológico, específicamente el de la diversidad de especies, sobre la respuesta de estos roles funcionales a las perturbaciones. Este proyecto evaluará los cambios estructurales en redes de interacción planta-colibrí a lo largo de un gradiente de diversidad de especies. En particular, me centraré en los cambios en los roles funcionales de las especies individuales (especialización trófica) así como en los cambios en la estructura de la red completa (complementariedad funcional y robustez a otras perturbaciones). Me centraré en comunidades que incluyan especies de colibríes residentes y migratorias a lo largo de un gradiente de diversidad de especies, para evaluar los cambios en los roles de las especies y la estructura de la red de interacción cuando la especie migradora está presente o ausente. Esta propuesta me permitirá evaluar la importancia de la biodiversidad en el mantenimiento de las funciones de los ecosistemas frente a la pérdida de especies. Para ello, usaré un experimento natural único en el que la misma especie se elimina de manera natural de comunidades a lo largo de un gradiente de diversidad y combinaré la toma de datos en el campo con el uso de análisis de redes punteros y el riguroso análisis estadístico de los datos.

El objetivo de CAUSE es analizar los mecanismos biofísicos de la provisión de los servicios ecosistémicos (SE) así como las implicaciones económicas que estos pueden tener permite a nuestra sociedad equilibrar ambos lados de la ecuación “medio ambiente vs. economía”, resultando en una mejor gestión y gobernanza. Hasta ahora, las aproximaciones a la cuantificación de los SE han ignorado su compleja dinámica y su estructura ecológica multidimensional, resultando en estimaciones de provisión de SE, usos y flujos, que no ofrecen la exactitud espacial o la precisión necesaria para informar de forma eficiente a la toma de decisiones. Estas aproximaciones no permiten tampoco un análisis basado en escenarios de una forma cuantitativa y explícita espacialmente.

The EU wants to transform itself to a low-carbon economy by mid-century. This transformation process will require an overhaul of the European economy, affecting a range of sectors – not only power generation, industry and transport, but also agriculture, construction or finance. Governing this transformation process is a huge challenge – stimulating the necessary innovations, ensuring public support, encouraging the needed investments, creating the right infrastructure, and avoiding lock-in into old, carbon-intensive technologies.

To manage this transformation, a range of policy instruments is required. The existing mix of climate policy instruments needs to be scaled up drastically to initiate the necessary changes.  But as the scale and scope of instruments increases, it becomes more important to understand and to manage their interaction, as do constraints on the political, legal and administrative feasibility. Policy solutions that have worked well in an economic niche are not necessarily suited to guide economic development on a broad scale; instruments that have co-existed well on a small scale may conflict when scaled up to an economywide level. To evaluate their efficiency and effectiveness, policy instruments cannot be viewed in isolation; understanding and managing their interaction becomes key.

The overarching goal of CHANCE is to contribute to bridging the gap between economic and social goals, through enhancing our understanding of how to foster socially fair and economically efficient climate mitigation policies. CHANCE will be implemented through a novel approach integrating Computable General Equilibrium and Microsimulation models.

After the Paris agreement, the need to collect more information about current efforts and progress towards adaptation is patent. Because of this, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of current adaptation policies is critical for public and private decision-making so that efforts can be well targeted, public funds and private investments can be effectively allocated, best-practices can be transferred and ultimately, adaptation science and practice can advance. When it comes to cities, local climate adaptation planning is relatively new. Earliest local adaptation plans began emerging about ten years ago and are an increasingly important component of the international climate policy agenda. It turns therefore critical to evaluate if and how local authorities are acting to adapt and whether local climate adaptation plans are on track to effectively reduce future risks. 

El principal objetivo de este proyecto de investigación es contribuir al avance del conocimiento científico para promover la reducción de emisiones de carbono y favorecer la transición a una economía baja en carbono. Este proyecto está orientado, específicamente, a adquirir nuevos conocimientos que permitan avanzar en la resolución del Reto 5 ("Acción sobre el cambio climático y eficiencia en la utilización de recursos y materias primas") identificado en la Estrategia Española de Ciencia y Tecnología y de Innovación.

 The main objective of this research project is to advance scientific knowledge regarding the implementation and design of climate and energy policies to promote a transition to a low-carbon, sustainable economy efficiently and equitatively. This objective is in line with challenge 5: "Acción sobre el cambio climático y eficiencia en la utilización de recursos y materias primas” identified in the "Estrategia Española de Ciencia y Tecnología y de Innovación".

Management of marine fisheries is still far from incorporating adaptation to climate change, even though global stocks are heavily overexploited and climate change is adding additional pressure to the resource. In fact, there is growing evidence that current fisheries management systems may no longer be effective under climate change, and this will translate into both ecological and socioeconomic impacts. This research project argues that the combination of fisheries management science and socio-ecological systems thinking is necessary in order to advance in fisheries adaptation to climate change.

COACCH will develop an innovative science-practice and integrated approach to co-design and co-deliver an improved downscaled assessment of the risks and costs of climate change in Europe, working with end users from research, business, investment, and policy making communities throughout the project. COACCH will advance the evidence base on complex climate change impact chains, assessing their market, non-market, macroeconomic and social consequences in the EU.

Como objetivo central del proyecto, BC3 se está centrando en comprender los factores que impulsan los patrones de consumo. Lo que se busca es mejorar las políticas diseñadas y puestas en práctica para promover patrones de consumo más sostenibles y bajos en carbono. BC3 se está centrando especialmente en políticas diseñadas para mejorar la eficiencia energética en los hogares.

The science of complex systems distinguishes linear from non-linear dynamics. Simpler systems can often be satisfactory described by linear models, but complex systems require non-linear models that can capture more of the characteristics of such systems, such as thresholds, feedback loops, avalanche effects, and irreversibility.

Linear systems can be validated by aligning models to the past and using the model to predict the future. Non-linear systems, however, are often time-asymmetric - they can be explained with the wisdom of hindsight, but are not always predictable. For example, systems may respond sharply to minor perturbations, and the quality of this response is a measure of the system resilience. In practice, non-linear dynamics are significant both at the micro-scale of small history and at the macro-scale of deep time. The brilliant young scientist, for example, may experience a series of epiphanies that change his/her understanding and behaviour in an unpredictable and irreversible way. The scientific community as a whole may experience an innovation-cascade that has a similar effect on a much larger scale.

Consumers do not minimize the total costs of their energy-consuming investments due to a range of market and non-market based failures. This is known as the ‘Energy Efficiency Gap’. To reduce the gap and provide customers with energy consumption information, the EU has mandated that electrical appliances, cars and buildings carry information to indicate their energy consumption.
There is a large knowledge gap in terms of understanding which factors are salient in consumers’ decisions, the relative importance of these factors and how these factors change by consumer group and product type. The key idea behind CONSEED is to understand how consumers make decisions which involve an energy component, and to make (energy) operating costs more salient to consumers at the point of purchase to increase efficient behaviour.

The objective of this project is to design and provide the innovative CORaHE (COld Raman Head) sensor for deep-UV Raman spectroscopy, to operate under cold environments between -30 and ?5 °C, performing non-destructive micro-Raman measurements on a portable device, discarding the need of cryostages and allowing direct microscopic measuring of the original cold samples without any limitation in size.

With their large and often poor populations in low-lying areas, deltas have long been seen as highly vulnerable to climate change and non-climate drivers with, in the most extreme, large-scale displacement of people being the result. Migration is a complex process which is already occurring in all deltas, largely independent of climate change. Most research on deltas and migration tends to focus on individual system elements and issues rather than taking a systems-level perspective. This fails to consider the wider consequences of climate change and the interdependence between these phenomena and people’s behaviour. In contrast to previous research, this programme of research will take a systemic and multi-scale analytical perspective to understand gendered vulnerability and adaptation in deltas under a changing climate by analysing four contrasting populous delta systems in South Asia and Africa where there is significant potential for migration.

In the setting of the 2^nd PNACC workprogramme, ECOHEALTH addresses the need to identify measures which could bring multiple co- benefits in health and ecosystems protection, in a context of adaptation to climate change, while mobilizing key stakeholders. The project relates to and expand some of the objectives stated in the Cost Action TObeWELL (Tourism, Wellbeing and Ecosystem Services, 2012-2016, Cost Action IS1204), which aims at bringing together principles of ecosystem services (ES), focusing on life support systems, with more non-material services such as culture, health and wellbeing. The project is also linked with the EU Project BASE (Bottom-up Climate Adaptation Strategies towards a Sustainable Europe, 2012-2016, FP7 ENV.2012.6.1-3), and specifically to the case study where BC3 and UPM are involved to assess co- benefits of adaptation measures in water and health to face droughts and heat waves in the area of Madrid.

Within this context, we aim to link research on wellbeing provided by ecosystems and the implications on human health. The idea is to explore how and in what way it is possible to improve human health and wellbeing, by using in a sustainable way natural resources and ecosystem services, while addressing adaptation to climate change. For example, in urban contexts, green spaces can be good adaptation options as they can provide a localized cooling effect (of 1°C - 2°C), while decreasing the risk of flooding. At the same time, they provide other co-benefits, such as improving air quality, cutting particulate pollution, reducing traffic noise, improving human health (both physical and psychological).

The aim of the ECONADAPT project is to provide user-orientated methodologies and evidence relating to economic appraisal criteria to inform the choice of adaptation actions using analysis that incorporates cross-scale governance under conditions of uncertainty. A critical theme of the proposal is therefore to support the application of adaptation economics in the period following the publication of the EU’s 2013 Adaptation Strategy, focusing on key decision areas that need enhanced economic information, and on the key users of such information.

The Energy Union Framework Strategy laid out on 25 February 2015 has embraced a citizens-oriented energy transition based on a low-carbon transformation of the energy system. The success of the energy transition pillar in the Energy Union will hinge upon the social acceptability of the necessary reforms and on the public engagement in conceptualizing, planning, and implementing low carbon energy transitions. The ENABLE.EU project will aim to define the key determinants of individual and collective energy choices in three key consumption areas - transportation, heating & cooling, and electricity – and in the shift to presumption (users-led initiatives of decentralised energy production and trade).

In order to combat climate change, several policies have been used in Spain to reduce the carbon intensity of the economy. However, household behavioural change has not received enough priority by the international climate debate. For these, more research is needed to keep the 1.5ºC target within reach. ENERPOLIS seeks to understand the effectiveness of market based (energy efficiency labels) and command and control instruments (Low emission zones) in Spain. This will be done through analysing the willingness to pay for energy efficiency of household appliances and study the effectiveness of the Madrid Low emission zone. The project will allow to provide useful recommendations to improve the design of policies influencing consumers’ choices of energy efficient technologies. Specifically, it will allow us to provide insights on the effectiveness of regulatory and economic instruments in the transition towards an energy efficient economy.

In order to secure more ethical and more effective approaches for nature conservation, social equity needs to be integrated as a key aspect in environmental governance. This involves recognizing and creating transparent and participatory mechanisms that can explicitly include the voices of the diversity of stakes and worldviews about human-nature relations. This necessarily requires that valuation of biodiversity (a shorthand for nature or any biotic system as seen by modern science, or other knowledge systems) is also an equitable process. Equitable valuation requires: recognition of diversity of worldviews on human-nature relations, guaranteeing transparent participation of stakeholders, and being mindful of the distribution of benefits and burdens of valuation-based decisions.

Agricultural intensification is a dominant environment and development policy intervention in landscapes characterised by shifting cultivation and/or by a mosaic of farm and forest lands. And yet recent studies from ESPA and beyond are beginning to show that the outcomes of such interventions can frequently fail in their intentions to alleviate poverty and reduce losses of forests and biodiversity. The main objective of this research is to improve our understanding of the effects of agricultural intensification, with a view to better understanding how agricultural policy and interventions can be more sustainable and pro-poor.

El objetivo principal de ESPERA es contribuir al conocimiento del impacto de los PSA (Pagos por Servicios Ambientales o ecosistémicos) sobre la equidad social y sus interrelaciones (trade-offs) con la efectividad ambiental y la eficiencia económica, desde la perspectiva socio-ecológica de los servicios ecosistémicos. ESPERA avanzará en el desarrollo de un marco conceptual siguiendo el trabajo de Pascual et al (2010; 2014) mediante la introducción de las relaciones de poder entre los actores de los PSA, una variable normalmente obviada en la literatura sobre PSA).

The objectives of this contract are:

 -Objective 1: Produce a modified version of the existing Trade-SCAN tool package for the analysis of income, GHG emissions and employment effects of consumption, investment and gross exports of countries.).

A EUROpean training and research network for environmental FLOW management in river basins.

FLAGSHIP is an FP7 project, funded by the European Commission (DG RESEARCH) under the “Socio-Economic Sciences and Humanities” theme, with the aim of developing a “Forward Looking Analysis of Grand Societal Challenges and Innovative Policies”.

The FLAGSHIP project thus aims at driving change, supporting the policy shift from adapting to changes through short-term policy responses, towards anticipating, welcoming and managing changes properly.

Current annual global estimates of premature deaths from poor air quality are estimated in the range of 2.6-4.4 million, and 2050 projections are expected to double against 2010 levels. In Europe, annual economic burdens are estimated at around 750 bn €. Climate change will further exacerbate air pollution burdens; therefore, a better understanding of the economic impacts on human societies has become an area of intense investigation. European research efforts are being carried out within the MACC project series, which started in 2005. The outcome of this work has been integrated into a European capacity for Earth Observation, the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS). In MACC/CAMS, key pollutant concentrations are computed at the European scale and globally by employing chemically-driven advanced transport models. In GLANCE,  an  integrated assessment model is developed for calculating the health impacts and damage costs of air pollution at different physical scales. It combines MACC/CAMS (assimilated Earth Observations, an ensemble of chemical transport models and state of the art ECWMF weather forecasting) with downscaling based on in-situ network measurements. 

The strengthening of modeled projections through integration with empirical evidence therefore reduces errors and uncertainties in the health impact projections. In addition, GLANCE will yield improved data accuracy at different time resolutions. This project is a multidisciplinary approach which brings together leading experts from natural sciences and socioeconomic fields.  GLANCE benefits the European community by contributing a novel approach to assess impacts of air quality at the local and regional levels, thus benefiting to long running EU commitments, while exploring new pathways for exploiting earth observational data.

La reducción de las emisiones de GEI en Europa y, por lo tanto, en España, es ya una realidad debido a los compromisos internacionales adquiridos, a la sensibilización de la sociedad y a la necesidad de alcanzar un sistema productivo más limpio y respetuoso con el medioambiente. Por lo tanto, la implantación de técnicas de reducción de GEI en las explotaciones porcinas es inevitable y, lo que se pretende con este proyecto, es ofertar a los agentes implicados en el diseño y manejo de las explotaciones porcinas un amplio abanico de tecnologías disponibles que, siendo eficaces medioambientalmente, sean además viables técnica y económicamente para que no solo no pongan en peligro la rentabilidad del sector porcino, sino que ayuden a mejorar los rendimientos productivos y la imagen de las granjas y del mundo rural.

El calentamiento de la superficie terrestre, junto con los cambios en los regímenes de precipitación, incrementan la frecuencia e intensidad de episodios de sequía, debido al cambio climático. En las últimas décadas ha aumentado el riesgo de pérdida de funcionalidad de los ecosistemas debido a la recurrencia de episodios de sequía, incluso para regiones donde la disponibilidad hídrica no se presuponía limitante. Es el caso de los bosques de las regiones templadas, como los hayedos europeos (Fagus sylvatica), donde se han observado claros signos de decaimiento en los últimos años en los límites altitudinales y latitudinales inferiores de su distribución, es decir en las áreas expuestas a temperaturas más elevadas y a mayor déficit hídrico.

Despite being a species historically adapted to Mediterranean drought conditions, Holm-oak (Q ilex subp Ballota) has shown clear signs of vulnerability in recent years reflected in an incipient process of defoliation and mortality. Given the urgent need to promote the conservation of this species of enormous ecological and socioeconomic importance in the Iberian Peninsula, it is a priority to improve our current understanding on the mechanisms and agents involved in health loss and vulnerability to extreme droughts and/or pathogenic attacks (eg Phytophthora cinnamomi). In this respect, the development of new "omics" has allowed to advance in the exploration of territories so far unexplored, such as the multifunctional role of the microbiota, the most diverse yet unknown ecosystem community, and its relation to physiological health. The project IBERYCA brings together an international and multidisciplinary team of experts (microbial ecologists, modelers, ecophysiologists, phytopathologists and biogeochemists) that will use the latest generation of "omics" techniques (metabarcoding and metabolomics) to deepen the multifunctional role of the microbiota (Prokaryotes, archaeas and fungi) in the health of Holm-oaks and their resilience to the increasing incidence of, e.g. extreme summer droughts and/or pathogen attacks.

Glaciers and ice sheets are essential elements of Earths climate system. Their interactions with the environment can have dramatic implications for life on the globe, as demonstrated by their roles in sea-level rise and global warming. Such environmental interactions remain recorded in the ice microstructure, in form of impurities like air bubbles, particles, and other climate proxies buried by subsequent snowfalls. It happens, however, that glaciers and ice sheets flow.

The overarching aim of INHERIT is to define effective inter-sectoral policies and interventions that promote health and well-being across the social gradient by tackling key environmental stressors and related inequalities in the areas of living, consuming and moving.

INHERIT will bring together relevant stakeholders from different sectors, including the private sector.

An integrative, landscape management approach incorporating socioeconomic and climate change scenarios is critical to ensure the delivery of benefits from investments in Blue and Green Infrastructures to meet the 2020 EU biodiversity targets and sustainable development in the Atlantic Region.

iSAGE will enhance the sustainability, competitiveness and resilience of the European Sheep and Goat sectors through collaboration between industry and research. iSAGE have a powerful consortium with 18 industry representatives from various EU production systems and socio-economic contexts. The sheep and goat sector will be investigated because it is sensitive to general socio-economic, demographic, and ecological and market challenges; nevertheless, the project’s approach and results will be made available and disseminated to other EU livestock industries. Therefore, at the core of iSAGE is a participatory approach centered on a multi-actor internal and external communication (WP) to build the project from the farmer level.

Pollinator declines raise concern globally given the dependence of >70% of crops on pollinators. In South Africa (SA), pollination limitation is widespread, already documented for different crops. Improving flower visitation by wild pollinators could therefore substantially decrease yield gaps, while simultaneously delivering the conservation of important biodiversity. However, currently we lack basic knowledge on (i) the identity of the wild pollinator species that visit different crops, (ii) their efficiency, (iii) their responses to landscape characteristics and (iv) the spatial match or mismatch between source areas of pollinators and croplands. This stems from knowledge gaps in our taxonomic system, lack of empirical tests of pollination efficiencies and responses to land use, and the absence of models designed specifically for South Africa (SA) settings.

Según la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS), las resistencias a los antibióticos son actualmente una de las mayores amenazas para la salud humana, la sostenibilidad económica de los sistemas sanitarios, la seguridad alimentaria y, en general, el desarrollo socioeconómico.

En la Comunidad Autónoma del País Vasco (CAPV), al igual que en el resto del mundo, este problema está aumentando de forma preocupante, como se refleja en la creciente detección en nuestros hospitales de infecciones causadas por bacterias multirresistentes o panresistentes, con el consiguiente aumento de fallecimientos, costes sanitarios (exempli gratia, tratamientos más costosos, estancias más largas en hospitales, tratamientos crónicos derivados de las secuelas médicas) y pérdidas de productividad para las empresas (e.g., bajas laborales).