Climate-resilient infrastructure in Europe

Infrastructure is not only important for maintaining and developing societies, it is foundational. For this reason, resilient infrastructure also plays an increasingly important role in the context of European and German strategies for climate change adaptation. Designing infrastructure to be climate-resilient is a complex process that must take into account various climate scenarios, path dependencies, usage routines and a large number of actors. Existing infrastructure must be adapted to climate change and its consequences, while new infrastructure must be designed for long-term resilience.

The Federal Environment Agency (UBA) has commissioned a consortium, headed by adelphi, to compile relevant knowledge on climate-resilient infrastructure and identify the most important scientific and political institutions and practitioners in Europe on this topic. Relevant actors from science, practice and policy-advising institutions from various disciplines will take part in the exchange in order to develop and disseminate innovative research and implementation activities and increase infrastructure climate resilience. This will also create small networks of participants and experts in the field.

Core activities to the project are the writing of a series of policy papers and the implementation of smaller events to bring together the identified experts from science, practice and politics. The focus is on three themes: the role of adaptation to climate change in the EU taxonomy, blue-green infrastructure in cities, and tools for analysing resilience. adelphi is leading the project and will implement the activities related to the EU taxonomy.