CLARITY

Urban areas and traffic infrastructure linking such areas are highly vulnerable to climate change. Smart use of existing climate intelligence can increase urban resilience and generate added value for businesses and society at large.

The overarching objective of CLARITY is to demonstrate the benefit of climate services for the climate proofing of vulnerable large-scale investments such as urban infrastructure. The six underlying measurable objectives of the CLARITY project are:

1. Develop an integrated Climate Services Information System (CSIS) for resilience assessment and climate-proofing of the large scale infrastructure projects
2. Maximize the re-use and tailoring of existing data, technologies and services
3. Co-design and Co-develop with suppliers, purveyors and end-users
4. Demonstrate and validate the added value, flexibility and adjustability of the CLARITY Services to national and/or regional differences
5. Create a CLARITY community
6. Make fit for Exploitation

Based on the results of FP7 climate change, future internet and crisis preparedness projects (SUDPLAN, ENVIROFI, CRISMA), end-users, purveyors and providers of climate intelligence have co-created an integrated Climate Services Information System (CSIS) to integrate resilience into urban infrastructure.

As a result, CLARITY provides an operational eco-system of cloud based climate services to calculate and present the expected effects of climate change induced and amplified hazards at the level of risk, vulnerability and impact functions that consider local microclimate conditions based on the exploitation of open data available at EU level (EURO-CORDEX, Copernicus, Eurostat, etc.). CLARITY offered what-if decision support functions to investigate the effects of adaptation measures and risk reduction options in the specific project context, and allow the comparison of alternative adaptation strategies.

This is achieved a two different levels: (1) an "Advanced Urban Screening" service, free for use and available at pan-European level (500m resolution) that supports users in creating assessment reports focusing on climate change impacts from heat waves and floods, and evaluating the effects of urban adaptation strategies in terms of avoided impacts and achievable co-benefits, and (2) "Expert Services" performed offline and tailored to specific end-users' needs, with a greater level of detail derived from the exploitation of locally available datasets.

The CLARITY Marketplace has been designed as a one-stop demand-offer meeting space where urban end-users (e.g. a local authority developing an adaptation plan) can identify relevant providers of product and services (e.g. modelling experts on specific hazard domains, companies selling construction products linked to climate adaptation, data providers, etc.) to support climate change adaptation projects.

Four demonstration cases showcase CLARITY climate services in different climatic, regional, infrastructure and hazard contexts in Italy, Sweden, Austria and Spain; focusing on the planning and implementation of urban infrastructure development projects.

CLARITY provides the practical means to include the effects of climate change hazards and possible adaptation and risk management strategies into planning and implementation of such projects, focusing on increasing climate change resilience. Decision makers involved in these projects will be empowered to perform climate proof and adaptive planning of urban adaptation and risk reduction options.

Further information on the CLARITY approach, services, tools and use cases can be found at https://www.gotostage.com/channel/climate-adaptation.