Description
The basic idea of the project is to open and make understandable the issue of adaptation to climate change in small and medium-sized municipalities in the Czech Republic in its range. In addition to awareness raising the project aims at providing the guide to the representative of the public authorities throughout the entire process, from the analysis of the place, through the definition of threats and designing concrete adaption measures to their implementation. The main objective of the project is to contribute to the mitigation of negative impacts of climate change on cities and municipalities of the Czech Republic. This will be achieved through the strengthening of capacities at the local level for the preparation of adaptation strategies, and at the same time linking the main local actors to have proper understanding and get prepared for the impacts of climate change. Main acitivites involve development of two case studies and organizing series of practical trainings.
Summary of project results
Climate change is one of the prime issues of today (it is one of the 17 SDGs of the UN 2030 Agenda). During last few years it became obvious, that if we want to prosper in the future, we must take action and adapt to the partially inevitable, harsh changes that are to come (if not already present). If we as a society will not begin to start making systematical changes, and measures, severe economical, ecological and nonmaterial losses can be expected. The current situation regarding climate change adaptation of municipalities in the Czech Republic is, unfortunately, unsatisfactory – the Czech municipalities lack experience, information, guidelines and support. Efficient systematical adaptation is, therefore, practically impossible. This applies to small towns and villages even more, because they are vulnerable to climate change impacts even more and they also have even less economical and social capital, which makes climate change adaptation harder yet. The goal of the project was therefore to create supportive, practical documents, which will enable small towns and villages to begin their own, local climate change adaptation. At the beginning of the project, a cooperation with two municipalities (Rakovnik and Kly) was initiated. During the upcoming several months „Local Adaption Teams“ were constituted in the cooperating municipalities. In the end, that is, in December 2015, two situation reports (one for each municipality) were written. These reports summarize the actual state, threats and possible solutions regarding climate change for each one of the municipalities. Furthermore, thanks to the experience gained during the cooperation with the two partner municipalities, we were able to create two methodical handbooks (manuals), which describe a pathway to local adaptation in a practical step-by-step fashion. The experience gathered during the cooperation with Rakovnik and Kly was further spread through a series of seminars, which we organized for municipal representatives and clerks. Finally, we wrote a book, which summarizes the topic of climate change adaptation, offers a theoretical background as well as practical experience and information about specific crucial adaptation measures. The two manuals and the book contain a lot of practical information about climate change adaptation and offer a valuable guidance at the road to adaptation. Apart from that, Rakovnik already plans for implementations based on experience gained in the project.
Summary of bilateral results