WP2. Building the knowledge base for individual research sites

 

 

The main objective of this WP is the development of a well structured knowledge base that helps understanding the context and adaptation issues for each research site. While helping researchers to understand the complexity and the adaptation issues of these sites, the knowledge base will mainly be used to support the policy exercises (see WP5 below).

 

The development of this knowledge base builds on the collection of existing data, research results and studies relevant to each research site complemented by dedicated stakeholder interviews that help gathering gray literature and stakeholder knowledge. The information is structured and stored in database/Geographic Information System (GIS).

 

The main issues investigated include:

 

•  The general description of the research site area in terms of today’s climate, population, economic development and land use, (urban) infrastructure, water resources management (including the main supply sources and demands), ecosystems (including in terms of the goods and services they provide)...;

 

• The dynamics of the research site, in particular in terms of human changes, sea level rise and climate change, constructing plausible narratives of coastal changes in the regions of interest (Hallegatte et al. , 2011).

 

•    The expected impacts and risks attributed to future changes, giving specific attention to freshwater resources (availability and use, including water supply and sanitation), urban infrastructure / agglomerations, and ecosystem services. Whenever possible, the relative share of impacts and risks attributed to sea level rise versus other change factors will be assessed (even if only qualitatively, e.g. following the approach used by Bell and Glade (2004) in the field of risk assessment ). All social, economic and environmental impacts will be considered here – combining qualitative, quantitative and (whenever available and relevant) monetary information. Specific attention will be given to ecosystem services, and how these might link natural and socio-economic dimensions of impacts;

 

•     The main sources of uncertainty in available knowledge.

 

The main characteristics of each site will be presented in a research site report (one report for each individual site). 

 

• Research site report for Portugal (pdf 6.5 Mo)