HARMONIA Final Event: A Milestone in Advancing Climate Resilience for European Cities
Milan, January 21, 2025 – The HARMONIA Project concluded its four-year journey with a final event in Milan, bringing together representatives from the project consortium, external stakeholders, and key users/local and regional authorities. Throughout the event, panel discussions showcased the outcomes achieved, challenges faced, and lessons learned, emphasizing the role of collaboration and innovation in addressing climate resilience across European cities.
The event began with an opening session by the Advisory Board, who commended the consortium for their work on the Integrated Resilience Assessment Platform (IRAP) and its Decision Support Systems (DSSs). They acknowledged the platform’s high value for enabling cities to assess risks and plan for climate adaptation and mitigation. However, they also highlighted areas for further development, including enhanced user integration and tailored services to meet diverse municipal needs.
Key Sessions and Discussions
Experiences from the Pilot Cities
The four pilot cities—Milan, Ixelles, Sofia, and Piraeus—shared insights on using HARMONIA tools to tackle their unique climate-related challenges. Despite their differing contexts, all cities praised the insights offered by IRAP. Feedback emphasized:
- The platform’s innovative role in providing actionable data for public authorities.
- The need for more comprehensive training for city officials.
- Greater integration of municipal policy needs as a foundation for platform design.
Tool Demonstration Session
A highlight of the event was the tool demonstration session that showcased the platform’s key features, including three Decision Support Systems (DSSs):
- Urban Planning DSS: Provides advanced multi-parameter decision support for urban planning, helping cities enhance efficiency and prioritize interventions based on nine indicators such as hazards, costs, and co-benefits.
- Multi-Hazard Mitigation DSS: Follows a holistic risk management approach, enabling decision-makers to assess vulnerabilities, manage risks, and prioritize mitigation efforts.
- Urban Health DSS: Focuses on predicting and analyzing the impact of environmental factors on respiratory health, offering spatial risk maps and health predictions for pilot cities like Milan and Piraeus.
These DSSs are integrated into a web-based visualization tool that was demoed during the event. The tool provides an intuitive, dynamic interface for users. Key features include 3D visualization of layers, urban statistics tools, scenario comparison charts, and tools for building risk mitigation and urban planning scenarios (see demo here).
Cities Feedback Session
The external feedback session brought insights from municipalities outside the HARMONIA consortium, highlighting the platform’s broader applicability and potential for scalability. Representatives from Rome, Kifissia, Torino, Palermo, and Athens shared their perspectives on the platform’s tools and outcomes. They expressed a strong interest in adopting similar systems within their municipalities to enhance climate resilience and urban planning efforts. They emphasized the platform’s ability to provide insights that are directly usable by urban planners and engineers, particularly in risk mitigation and environmental monitoring. They recognized its value in fostering data-driven decision-making. These cities viewed the HARMONIA platform as a significant step forward in addressing urban challenges, with the potential to be tailored to their specific needs and integrated into local resilience strategies.
External Feedback Session – Lessons Learned from HARMONIA
A dedicated panel explored broader lessons, with speakers addressing the importance of fostering synergies among projects and stakeholders. Panelists emphasized how synergy along EU-funded projects should be every project’s kick-start. To stay competitive in the EU and deliver solutions that benefit society, there is a need to adopt a mentality of collaboration and ecosystem-building among similar projects.
Core lessons included:
- Harmonization of geospatial and Earth Observation data for effective climate adaptation.
- Integration of smart, user-friendly, and scientifically robust automated solutions.
- Addressing challenges like fragmented data availability and stakeholder engagement.
This panel brought insights from other initiatives, to share best practices and solutions for common challenges, including:
- Identifying and validating risk indicators using a hybrid EO and modeling approach.
- Developing a comprehensive framework for evaluating multi-hazard risks.
- Demonstrating the platform’s value to stakeholders through workshops and showcasing success stories.
Key Achievements and Next Steps
The event highlighted the HARMONIA platform’s ability to connect end-users with climate resilience tools, a notable achievement that positions it as a benchmark for similar initiatives. However, challenges remain, including stakeholder integration, central coordination for European platforms, and ensuring equal access to data across cities.
About the HARMONIA Project
HARMONIA is an EU-funded initiative that leverages Earth Observation data and cutting-edge technologies to assess and mitigate climate risks for European cities. The consortium includes partners from leading organizations: Politecnico di Milano, Agency of Sustainable Development and Eurointegration – Ecoregions /ASDE, Creotech Instruments, DataReady, Euronet Consulting EEIG, Finnish Meteorological Institute, Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas – FORTH, HUMANITAS Research Hospital, ICCS Ntua, INGV Italya, Ixelles, Piraeus, Sofia, UrbaSofia, KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, MP Legal, Comune di Milano, Resiliene Guard, West University of Timișoara (UVT), GEOSYSTEMS HELLAS, Assimila Ltd, and the European Association of Remote Sensing Companies (EARSC).
For more information about the HARMONIA platform, visit: Contact: https://harmonia-project.eu/