Cases, Energy, Climate Change, Environment, Economic Development
Bringing INnovation to onGOing water management – A better future under climate change
Climate Change. Water scarcity. Floods. Droughts. Heavy rains. These words have increasingly punctuated our current dialogue in Europe – socially, academically, and politically. There are plenty of long-term concepts on how to face Climate Change. But how can decision-makers and end users face the intermediate challenges Climate Change brings? What is the right path and time scale to address today and be prepared to future climate scenarios?
The Horizon 2020 project BINGO: Bringing INnovation to onGOing water management – a better future under Climate Change (2015-2019) aimed at providing practical knowledge and tools to end users, water managers and decision and policy makers affected by Climate Change o enable them to better cope with all climate projections, including droughts and floods.
Led by Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil (LNEC, Portugal), the project involved 20 European Partners from six countries, including research and innovation centres, water authorities, water users and companies.
BINGO provided demand-driven solutions for specific climate-related challenges, in particular for highly vulnerable water resources of strategic importance. It addressed average and extreme conditions of Climate Change scenarios in six areas across Europe, from North to South.
Tags: Hydrology, governance, crisis management, water management, hydroelectricity, BINGO, climate change, water cycle, drought, floods, tool, extreme weather event
Challenges addressed
- Improve and downscaled climate predictions and projections of climate variables
- Integrate analysis of the impacts of Climate Change scenarios on the water cycle;
- Improve dialogue between different actors, including decision-makers;
- Categorize risk management measures to mitigate climate impacts on water cycle
- Increase public awareness of the effects of Climate Change on floods and droughts;
- Development of knowledge and tools for a more efficient management of water resources in Europe.
Main objectives
To guarantee sound management strategies for future weather challenges, BINGO developed and validated all solutions built by strong dynamic interaction of researchers with end-users and decision-makers throughout the project. By creating such knowledge alliances, water managers and other stakeholders can share awareness of climate challenges, thus increasing the possibilities of collaboration to manage and better cope with future climate challenges.
Facts
| Project type | Water management, Climate Change. Water scarcity. Floods. Droughts |
| Partnership |
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| Funding | Horizon Europe – Funded under SOCIETAL CHALLENGES – Climate action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials.
Total cost: € 7 822 422,50 Barcelona Metropolitan Area € 49 750,00 Net EU contribution |
| Start date | Start date: 1 July 2015
End date: 30 September 2019 |
| Website |
Bingo website |
Project description
The water sector needs improved climate prediction and downscaling based on consistent grounds (IPCC 5th Assessment Report, 2013). There is also a need for near future weather scenarios and anticipation of their impacts in the water cycle together with risk management strategies.
BINGO provided demand-driven solutions for a number of specific climate-related challenges in particular for highly vulnerable water resources of strategic importance. Water managers and other stakeholders will then be provided with information on specific climate scenarios at the space/time resolution fitting their needs, enabling them to act at various geographical levels (local, regional and European).
BINGO aimed at reducing the uncertainty of climate predictions and developing response strategies to help society manage that uncertainty. An innovative approach consists of enrolling end-users from the start, identifying specific vulnerabilities, needs and concerns about future climate.
BINGO built around 7 research sites in Northern and Southern Europe, covering a representative range of climatic conditions as well as combinations of water systems and water pressures. They illustrated a variety of water cycles at local/regional scales in Europe over various timescales, as well as common problems, including floods and droughts; water quality pressured by CSO, agriculture and competing demands for water (urban/tourism; agriculture/food security; hydropower).
As such, BINGO provided sectors using water resources demand-driven solutions for specific climate-related challenges in Europe that focus on different geographical scales and are usable by a diverse spectrum of end users. After developing decadal climate predictions with a specific focus on extreme events (droughts and floods), BINGO modeled the impacts of changing climate on the water cycle and water demands, and analysed how this could affect water availability and storage and the key sectors under scope. The assessment of risks and vulnerabilities allowed BINGO to establish adaptation measures considering the transferability of results.
These measures were built taking into account the critical socio-economic factors, financing, and policy contexts as well as scenarios of land use, urban pressures and water demands. All solutions were co-produced, tested, and validated by key end users at the six research sites.
Impact and results
BINGO was able to:
Improve the decadal prediction of future climate, including extreme events
- Co-produce better prediction tools for climate change impacts on quantity and quality of water resources
- Develop adaptation/integrated management strategies, validated and tailored to the local-scale and its natural and socio-economic constraints
- Implement effective dissemination and exploitation to ensure that measures are transferred to end users – e-book DECO open access data platform , videos , guidelines, publications, reports, policy briefs
- Co-produce an online portfolio of management practices and adaptation strategies with transfer potential across the EU
- Develop and strengthen the transferability of management practices/adaptation measures to other EU sites within similar climatic regions – BINGO was broadcasted by Euronews in 158 countries and 13 languages
- Organise the European Climate Change Adaptation Conference (ECCA 2019).
Moreover, H2020 BINGO influenced other dimensions of sustainability:
- Improve innovation capacity by strengthening early end-user involvement to facilitate the integration of new knowledge into real practice.
- Social impact in terms of social justice, vulnerability and affordability, as well as economic impact, through a special focus on the economic, societal and policy implications of possible measures and by recommendations for implementing the best transition path for each site, as well as recommendations for transfer to other regions.
- Environmental Impact was achieved by a scenario approach where a ‘sustainability first’ criteria was relevant to the analysis.
- Governance and Policy Impact through analysis and recommendations of improvements. Four Policy-briefs were produced and disseminated.
The BINGO legacy is being kept alive for the next decade thought the new BINGO website repository, retrofitted for long-term operation.
Publications & main documents
DECO open access data platform
BINGO was broadcasted by Euronews in 158 countries and 13 languages
MORE CONTENTS
Check out BINGO project’s outputs:
