Social Sciences

BASE: Bottom-up Climate Adaptation Strategies towards a Sustainable Europe

1 October 2012 - 30 September 2016

PI/s in Exeter: Professor Duncan Russel

Research partners: Co-I: Tim Taylor (PCMD), Ben Wheeler(PCMD), Phil Staddon (PCMD)

Funding awarded: £ 264,891

Sponsor(s): European Commission (EC)

Project webpage(s)

BASE: Bottom-up Climate Adaptation Strategies towards a Sustainable Europe

About the research

From 2012-2016, the BASE project aims to foster sustainable adaptation in Europe by improving the knowledge base on adaptation and making this information easier to access, understand and act upon. Specifically, BASE will:  

  • Compile and analyse data and information on adaptation measures and their effectiveness towards a publicly available comprehensive, integrated knowledge base. This includes analysis of social and economic benefits, sectoral adaptation costs, and policy making implications.
  • Improve and develop new assessment methods and tools for assessing climate impacts, vulnerabilities, risks and policies.
  • Identify conflicts and synergies at different policy levels as well as between and within sectors to highlight strategies for improving policy coherence and effectiveness. 
  • Integrate bottom-up knowledge with top-down processes through innovative approaches to assess the effectiveness, costs and benefits of adaptation strategies at different scales.
  • Bridge the gap between specific assessments of adaptation measures and ‘top down’ implementation of comprehensive and integrated strategies.
  • Increase the integration of local knowledge and perceptions of adaptation pathways through novel participatory methods and deliberative tools to create co-designed and effective adaptation strategies.
  • Disseminate project results to policy makers, practitioners and other stakeholders to increase awareness of the impacts, costs and benefits of climate adaptation for effective and sustainable adaptation strategies through tools such as Climate-ADAPT.