Leveraging the potential of tree-based solutions for adaptation in Europe (Trees4Adapt)

Objective

Climate change and biodiversity loss are interdependent crises, but knowledge gaps on their interplays prevent effective risk assessment and solutions. Trees4Adapt will enhance empirical understanding of climate change, biodiversity loss, their interdependencies, and how these influence risks; develop evidence-informed tools and solutions that build climate resilience and support biodiversity at the same time. We focus particularly on tree-based solutions, which are nature-based solutions involving trees that promise to safeguard the EU by delivering cross-sectoral benefits, if we better tailor their design and implementation.

Trees4Adapt combines field-quantified understanding from multi-national research platforms and case studies representative of boreal, temperate, and Mediterranean biomes with novel bioeconomic modelling and high-resolution modelling and mapping of complex risks. Our activities operate from the plot- to EU-level, with interdisciplinary models developed during the project integrating the scale-dependent findings. Trees4Adapt applies co-creational approaches, and key stakeholders - including public administration and authorities - from the local- to EU levels will actively guide, inform, and participate in the project. This will ensure the outputs of our research are useable, custom-made to stakeholders’ specific needs, and result in changes in decision-making and other impact in relation to recognised societal needs and key EU and global policy priorities including the Climate Adaptation, Forest, and Biodiversity Strategies. Ultimately, Trees4Adapt aims to work with and support EU decision-makers to successfully assess and address complex risks from climate change and biodiversity loss.

IIASA contribution

In the Trees4Adapt, IIASA is leading activities and tasks in WP4, which aims to identify homologous regions for tree-based solutions (TbS) across Europe. Using models from the IIASA integrated assessment toolbox, we will map and assess single, compound and cascading risks of climate change on European ecosystems and biodiversity. Innovatively, we will couple state-of-the-art hydrological, forestry and biodiversity models to assess how climatic risks propagate through ecosystems, taking into account local plot-scale survey and regional case-study data for calibration and validation. This will help to answer where tree-based ecosystems are under explicit future climatic risks, and where trees (and their management) can be a solution for adapting forestry, agricultural production and other land systems to be more climate resilient and mitigate biodiversity loss. The output will be a series of spatial-temporal projections of the combined risk of climate change and biodiversity loss, as well as a decision support tool for assessing similarities in tree-based adaptation strategies.

Funding

Funded by the European Union under the Horizon Europe Programme, Grant Agreement No. 101213184 (Trees4Adapt). Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.