Overview

The case studies within the MEDIATION project serve as illustrations for addressing several climate change adaptation challenges at different decision making levels, in representative countries of Europe. The purpose of the case studies is to support the project by assessing the conditions for applicability of adaptation options, by making bottom-up analysis of the adaptation decision making context at the countries of focus, by developing methods for adaptation decision making, and by supporting the WPs to formulate common methodological elements and finally create and integrated methodology for decision making.

In order to achieve this purpose, the case studies will first gather information from local stakeholders about existing decision making contexts, identify the perceived policy needs, and develop adaptation options, which will be suitable for the region in focus. As a second stage, the information gathered will serve as inputs to WP2 and WP3 to identify and apply appropriate methods and tools to assess impacts, vulnerabilities and adaptation options. After second round of stakeholder consultations of assessing the applicability of suggested methods and tools, WP4 will meta-analyze the case descriptions in order to achieve an integrated methodology.

The cases have been selected with the aim of representing the sub-European regions (Northern, Western, Southern, Central Europe) in several vulnerable sectors such as health, land use, coastal areas, agriculture and tourism with 8 studies, besides 2 Europe-wide studies focusing on impacts of floods and forest fires.