H2020 OPERANDUM Project: Open-air laboratories for nature-based solutions to manage hydro-meteorological risks
- Type Project
- Status Filled
- Execution 2018 -2022
- Assigned Budget 12.257.343,25 €
- Scope Europeo
- Main source of financing H2020
- Project website Proyecto OPERANDUM
In the first 36 months of the project, OPERANDUM has completed 43 deliverables and reached 7 milestones. Several outcomes have been achieved across all project components, particularly by advancing our understanding of the effectiveness of NBS against hydrometeorological hazards. More than 20 types of NBS have been co-designed and co-developed against the main hazards addressed by OPERANDUM: river flooding, coastal flooding, drought, landslides, coastal erosion, saline intrusion, storm surge, and nutrient overload. Most of these NBS are associated with a technological breakthrough, such as the construction of a vegetated dune with textiles with integrated sensors for structural monitoring in a coastal environment, which has been patented.
Furthermore, many other NBS are currently being implemented after careful co-design with relevant stakeholders. A complex monitoring system has been implemented in eight countries where NBS are being implemented. Furthermore, multi-scale modeling has been implemented to assess the effectiveness of NBS against monitored data, thus ensuring a scientifically based methodology for replication and scaling up. Both monitoring and modeling efforts are integrated into a complex framework where NBS are evaluated based on co-benefits in terms of risk reduction, acceptance, and business adoption.
The scenarios associated with the specific meteorological conditions investigated were assessed using a set of indicators covering different socioeconomic, health, legislative, and cultural areas. Furthermore, OPERANDUM partners designed, implemented, and maintained a multidimensional, open, and flexible platform: the OPERANDUM Geospatial Information Knowledge Platform (GeoIKP), available at http://geoikp.operandum-project.eu.
Severe hydrometeorological events are having a major impact on European territories and are a cause for global concern. The science underlying these phenomena is complex, and advancing knowledge is accompanied by advances in data acquisition and forecasting, useful for interventions in real-life scenarios. The use of nature-based solutions (NBS) to mitigate the impact of hydrometeorological events is not sufficiently demonstrated, is not yet coordinated at the European level, and therefore has not reached its full potential. Actions to maximize the impact of NBS require strategies that foster social acceptance and policy strengthening, while demonstrating the advantages for market development.
The objective of OPERANDUM is to reduce hydrometeorological risks in European territories through innovative, green and blue/grey/hybrid NBS, jointly designed, developed, implemented, tested, and demonstrated, and to boost their commercial exploitation. It provides scientific evidence supporting the usability of NBS and best practices for their design, based on a participatory process involving multiple stakeholders, from the local community to the international level, to boost the widest possible uptake of NBS and promote their dissemination as a good practice.
It establishes the framework for strengthening NBS-based policies, in accordance with local legislation, and promotes NBS technology and innovation to create European leadership. OPERANDUM is based on Outdoor Labs (ALAs), a relatively new concept that extends Living Labs to a broader view of natural and rural areas. In ALAs, new NBS are implemented in seven European countries and three in China and Australia to address specific risks and their effectiveness, assessed using innovative monitoring systems and cutting-edge numerical modeling approaches. OPERANDUM creates a multidimensional, open, and flexible platform, enabling stakeholders and end-users to enhance their knowledge of NBS for climate change mitigation, as well as to find ways to promote and exploit an improved/preserved environment, while increasing business opportunities.
Severe hydrometeorological phenomena are having a significant impact on European territories and are a cause for global concern. The science behind these phenomena is complex, and progress in knowledge is advancing alongside advances in data acquisition and forecasts useful for interventions in real-life scenarios. The use of nature-based solutions (NBS) to mitigate the impact of hydrometeorological phenomena is not sufficiently demonstrated and is not yet coordinated at the European level, thus failing to reach its full potential. Actions to maximize the impact of NBS require strategies to improve social acceptance and strengthen policies, while demonstrating advantages for market development.
The objective of OPERANDUM is to reduce hydrometeorological risks in European territories through innovative, green and blue/grey/hybrid NBS, co-designed, co-developed, implemented, tested, and demonstrated, and to boost business exploitation. It aims to provide scientific evidence on the usability of NBS and best practices for their design based on participatory processes. It foresees multiple levels of stakeholder engagement, from the local community to the international level, to leverage the widest possible acceptance of NBS and promote their dissemination as a good practice. It establishes the framework for strengthening NBS-based policies in accordance with local legislation and promotes NBS technology and innovation to create European leadership. OPERANDUM is based on Outdoor Air Labs (OAL), a fairly new concept that extends Living Labs to a broader view of natural and rural areas.
At OAL, novel NBS are being implemented in seven European countries and three in China and Australia to address specific risks, and their effectiveness is assessed through innovative monitoring systems and cutting-edge numerical modeling approaches. OPERANDUM creates an open and flexible multidimensional platform that enables stakeholders and end-users to improve knowledge in NBS for climate change mitigation, as well as ways to promote and exploit the improved/preserved environment while increasing commercial opportunities.
Several of the results go beyond the state of the art, such as a comprehensive analysis conducted to examine the benefits of NBS in addressing hydrometeorological risks. The analysis also included the identification of barriers hindering wider adoption of NBS and presented approaches to overcome these social and political barriers. Key findings were published in a top-tier journal (Debele et al., 2019). A systematic literature review led to the establishment of the methodology to describe hydrometeorological risks in Ocean Areas (OAs). Specifically, the risks considered were floods, droughts, landslides, nutrient and sediment loading, coastal erosion, and storm surge.
Their impacts on ALOs were presented, and the NBS already implemented or suitable for implementation within OPERANDUM were discussed, focusing on potential barriers, knowledge gaps, and critical issues that could impede their implementation in ALOs. The key findings of these activities were published in Sahani et al. (2019). In this project, an unprecedented and detailed synthesis of hydrometeorological forcing of hazards in each OAL was developed. These outputs include extreme hydrometeorological events for each OAL, identified and classified using various data, as well as a 30-year climate assessment developed using reanalysis (ERA-5) and hydrometeorological satellite data products. Furthermore, partners conducted a systematic literature review to identify existing approaches, methods, and tools for vulnerability and risk assessment linked to NBS and hydrometeorological hazards.
The project achieved crucial methodological advances in multiscale impact modeling (Gallotti et al., 2021; Kumar et al., 2020). Among other achievements, these methodological advances led to original evaluations of the effectiveness of NBS that consistently consider non-stationary climate across all stages of the model chain (e.g., the work of Spyrou et al., 2021), which can serve as proof of concept for generalizing the approach. As a key output of the project, the GeoIKP was included in a summary of the 2022 Global Assessment Report for Disaster Risk Reduction, sharing several OPERANDUM results with a broad audience.
OPERANDUM was presented as one of UNESCO’s NBS flagship projects during several virtual international events, including: the International Day for Disaster Reduction (13 October 2020), the Global Forum on Mountain Sustainability on 5 October 2020, the thematic session on “Sustainable Governance in Mountain Regions”, the 6th session of UNESCO’s “Let’s Talk about DRR” series on Nature-Based Solutions for Disaster Risk Reduction on 18 December 2020, the International Symposium on IoT and ML for Ecosystem Restoration and Multi-hazard Resilience on 5 June 2021. Knowledge transfer of OAL works is achieved through a series of public webinars organized by UNESCO.
- ALMA MATER STUDIORUM - UNIVERSITA DI BOLOGNA (UNIBO)
Related projects
