LIFE LOCAL ADAPT project comes to an end.

Project LIFE LOCAL ADAPT aims to integrate climate change adaptation into the work of urban authorities on a local level. Six partners from four countries (figure 1) came together in 2016 to start a five-year project that addressed:

• Improvement of data and information base on climate change impacts
• Enhancing the knowledge of municipalities on climate change adaptation
• Integration of climate change adaptation into the administrative practice of local authorities
• Implementation of specific climate change adaptation measures in cooperation with municipalities

The project has focused on small and medium-sized municipalities in Saxony (Germany), Styria (Austria), North-West (Czechia), and Valka (Latvia). At the beginning of this month (November 2021), project partners came to the final project meeting in Dresden to report the successes achieved throughout the project and discuss the way forward. The achievements include, for example, the development of natural hazard check action plans in several municipalities in Styria, the development of an adaptation strategy and retrofitting of housing buildings to increase the energy efficiency in Valka or coaching of municipalities and implementation of adaptation measures in Saxony.

In NorthWest Czechia, the CzechGlobe team managed to partner with four municipalities. These are Litoměřice, Ústí nad Labem, Cheb and Kadaň. We used participation during workshops in municipalities to highlight the local knowledge regarding climate change perceived risks and impacts in each city and discussed possible future development scenarios concerning climate and also socio-economic trends. Together with local stakeholders, we also managed to review the barriers and challenges in adaptation planning and identified measures that would be possible to implement in the future. As a result of these workshops, we have co-develop principles of adaptation strategy planning for the involved cities.

The project helped to explore various methods and approaches to adaptation planning in several small and medium-sized European cities and contributed to integrating climate change adaptation into the decision-making of municipalities. We consider this a pivotal point that starts the adaptation process itself and hopefully, it will help direct stakeholders in carrying out the adaptation activities in the future.

For more information about the project, please visit https://life-local-adapt.eu.