As climate impacts intensify across Europe, the need to track how well adaptation efforts are working has never been greater. Too often, monitoring focuses on strategies and procedures rather than tangible results—like reduced risks, stronger resilience, and healthier communities.
The EU-funded UNDERPIN project is tackling this challenge by designing a new outcome-focused monitoring framework. Using standardised indicators built from Earth observation data, citizen science, and AI tools, the project will measure real progress at local, regional, and national levels.
Developed together with stakeholders in three pilot regions, this framework will empower more informed and coordinated decisions across Europe. By aligning with EU and UN climate reporting standards, UNDERPIN will help ensure that adaptation efforts are not only happening, but truly making a difference.
Objective
UNDERPIN addresses critical gaps in monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) for climate adaptation across Europe. It will design, develop, and validate an outcome-oriented framework that enhances existing frameworks for assessing climate resilience. This framework will include operationalized process and outcome indicators to track adaptation progress at local, regional, and national levels. A major challenge is the lack of standardized indicators capturing the effectiveness of adaptation efforts. Existing frameworks often focus on processes but fail to assess long-term resilience outcomes. UNDERPIN aims to bridge this gap by developing indicators that evaluate both short-term results and long-term impacts, helping stakeholders assess how well adaptation actions reduce vulnerabilities and enhance resilience. To achieve this, UNDERPIN will review existing climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction (DRR) indicators and integrate novel data sources, including Earth observation and citizen science. The project will involve stakeholders in three pilot regions to co-create and refine the framework, ensuring practical relevance and adaptability. A user-friendly dashboard with AI and machine learning tools will provide real-time analysis at the EU and regional level, helping decision-makers track progress, identify gaps, and make data-driven decisions. A citizen science and just climate resilience lens is used throughout the different activities of UNDERPIN. By aligning with EU and global reporting standards, such as the EU Adaptation Strategy and the UNFCCC, UNDERPIN will harmonize climate adaptation monitoring across governance levels, fostering a coordinated approach to resilience-building in Europe.