Timisoara, Romania – July 4, 2024
On June 27th and 28th, the HARMONIA Consortium gathered in Timisoara, Romania, to advance their collaborative efforts on urban resilience and climate change (CC) adaptation. This meeting focused on several critical topics, including the extension of geotechnical models, urban air quality, heat island hazards, and the integration of data into the GEOSS platform.
In Timisoara, consortium partners demonstrated that the IRAP platform is now in its final testing stage. Soon, municipalities will be able to receive hands-on training on how to use the application. Starting in September, the consortium will organize demonstration workshops for each municipality. During these workshops, employees will have the opportunity to learn from technical partners how to use the tools.
The meeting highlighted the completion of an extended task on geotechnical models, revealing significant findings in Sofia, Bulgaria. Notably, landslides and land depressions caused by infrastructure projects were identified in three key areas. The precise cause of these depressions remains uncertain, necessitating further investigation to determine whether they stem from construction issues or soil conditions. This discovery underscores the need for risk assessment tools in support of municipalities such as the IRAP developed by the HARMONIA project.
The consortium discussed progress on Task 6.1, which addresses urban air quality and heat island hazards using ERA5 data. Researchers from Resilience Guard lead efforts to improve urban resilience and vulnerability assessments (Task 6.2) integrated into the decision support system (DSS) features of the IRAP. The meeting also covered the development of HARMONIA’s urban planning application and the integration of the urban health and well-being application by HUMANITAS (Task 6.5). Significant progress has been made in integrating data with the GEOSS platform. Ongoing efforts include data provider registration, metadata harmonization, and interoperability testing. The HARMONIA use case documentation is being formatted to align with GEOSS templates.
Part of the meeting was dedicated to a demonstration workshop. This workshop aimed to demonstrate the IRAP platform, the various DSSs, and their functioning, with the outcome of collecting feedback from municipalities. The platform allows users to select existing policies for baseline risk assessment. It offers the ability to build your risk mitigation scenario based on the urban planning recommendations provided by urban planning DSS. An updated demo video of the platform can be found here.
Geosystems Hellas presented an initial view of the visualization tool for the various DSSs, showcasing its application in Milan for the case of flash flood hazards. The tool integrates multiple data layers, including air quality, flooding, land cover, and geohazards, providing actionable insights for urban planning. The platform’s risk assessment capabilities allow users to select existing policies and adjust risk indicators, generating tailored risk scores and mitigation scenarios.
In this context, ASDE, from the Sofia Municipality outlined their comprehensive climate action plans to enhance climate change mitigation efforts. Emphasizing the need for localized solutions, Sofia advocates for a decentralized DSS approach, allowing pilot cities to tailor solutions based on their specific priorities.
The meeting concluded with discussions on uncertainties in risk assessments and the importance of transparent guidelines. Ixelles emphasized the need for clear matrices explaining risk scores. The consortium is committed to continuous improvement and collaboration, ensuring that the HARMONIA project delivers effective, localized solutions for urban resilience against climate change.
About HARMONIA
HARMONIA is an H2020-funded initiative that supports cities and local communities to tackle Climate Change effects. The project consortium composed of 22 partners develops a resilience assessment platform to help urban stakeholders understand and quantify Climate Change effects. HARMONIA platforms offer a user-friendly knowledge base, dispensing detailed information on a local neighborhood and street level.
This supports local decision making and fosters a wide range of applications dedicated to climate adaptation and mitigation, such as Carbon Capture and Storage technologies.
For more information, please contact:
Francesco Casaril
Communications Officer
EARSC
Francesco.casaril@earsc.org