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BlueHealth Project / University of Exeter (EU H2020 Consortium)

Decision Support Tool under BlueHealth Toolbox

The BlueHealth Decision Support Tool (DST) guides a user through a series of steps to: (a) identify key health risks and benefits of a given blue space, and (b) support decision-making towards maximizing its potential to provide these health and wellbeing benefits to a population. The DST was designed to be applicable to planning of new blue spaces and major interventions on existing water bodies, but it can also be used to review and improve the management and maintenance of existing blue spaces. The tool includes information for different blue spaces, such as coasts, rivers, lakes, urban water bodies, blue spaces in urban parks, and ornamental blue spaces such as wells or fountains. It provides guidance on three goals: - Preventing health risks related to blue spaces, such as injuries and drowning, water-related illnesses, vector-borne diseases, or climate-specific factors; - Promoting benefits to human health, such as providing opportunities for physical activity, or improvements in mental and social wellbeing through recreation and relaxation; - Improving ecosystems and providing environmental benefits, such as regulating services (the benefits obtained from the regulation of ecosystem processes

Open tool

What you can do with it

Input

  • Select a type of blue space: coasts, rivers, lakes, urban water bodies, urban-park blue spaces, or ornamental blue spaces such as wells or fountains
  • Work through guidance on preventing health risks, promoting human-health benefits, and improving ecosystem/environmental benefits
  • Apply to new blue-space planning, major interventions, or management/maintenance review of existing blue spaces

Output

  • Reports and decision-support guidance on blue-space health risks and benefits

Use it to

  • Identify flooding and heat-related risks associated with a blue space
  • Assess climate risks and identify adaptation options for coastal, health and urban contexts
  • Prioritise interventions improving health, wellbeing and ecosystem outcomes

Why is it relevant to climate adaptation

One of the few tools focused specifically on the health dimension of adaptation for blue spaces, developed and validated by an academic H2020 consortium (peer-reviewed methodology, expert validation, case-study and user/pilot testing). Its scope is deliberately narrow — the tool owner recommends linking to it specifically for blue-space health relevance — and it provides no nature-based-solution, cost-benefit or just-resilience functionality.

Used in

  • Planning and management of coastal, river, lake, urban and ornamental blue spaces through the EU H2020 BlueHealth project
  • National, subnational and transnational users in coastal areas, health and urban sectors

Metadata

User Group
Transboundary networksNational authoritiesSubnational authorities
Geographic coverage
Europe
Spatial resolution

N/A

Support of Adaptation Policy Cycle
Step 2: Assessing Climate Change Risks and Vulnerabilities
Step 3: Identifying Adaptation Options
Step 4: Assessing and Prioritising Adaptation Options
Adaptation sectors
Health
Climate hazards
FloodingHeat
Type of outputs
Reports and decision support
Temporality of data
Present
Language
English
Accessibility and usability
High
Data sources
Project-generated or processed datasets
Tool validation use
Peer-reviewed methodologyCase-study validationExpert validation / reputable institution

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This translation is generated by eTranslation, a machine translation tool provided by the European Commission.

Exclusion of liability
This translation is generated by eTranslation, a machine translation tool provided by the European Commission.