Blue Transition - How to make my region climate resilient

Climate change together with human use and change of landscapes increases the pressure on groundwater and soil resources in the NSR. The internal and external factors controlling groundwater and soils are connected in a complex way and may have amplifying negative repercussions.

EU Climate Change Adaptation strategy, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the EU directives for Groundwater, for Water and for Soil all call for faster and systematic change to ensure enough good-quality water at any time.

The project targets a systemic change, a “Blue Transition”, by an integrated water and soil management in times of climate change. A BT balances often-disconnected activities in urban, agricultural or natural areas, considers a transition in land-use and fosters political structures and governance. Thus, BT accounts for the complex and crosscutting relationships between climate adaptation and water management.

16 pilots in Denmark, The Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, France and Germany gain knowledge about the complexity and develop in three crosscutting WPs transnational solutions for water boards, farmers, authorities and the society to: (i) enable land-use change in forests, farming land, wetlands, peatlands or nature protected areas both short and long term to secure and improve groundwater resources; (ii) integrate, connect and balance activities in agricultural, natural and urban areas; (iii) ensure the future availability of good-quality water while helping to revitalise natural habitats and reduce CO2 emissions.

The BT consortium has been set up with selected 24 partners from six countries to cover the necessary variety and similarities which allow to develop compressive strategies and policy recommendations both at local and at pilot level (see Annex). This large consortium links science, government, industrie, stakeholder and sociey to fosters implementation, to upscale measures by transnational discussion, and includes innovative dissemination and capacity building.