The effects of climate change are evident and we must prepare for the long-term future. This is one of the missions of the Center for Applied Research in Hydrometeorology (CRAHI) of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, experts in floods, droughts and protection against emergencies. They also collaborate in large international projects to forecast and anticipate the consequences of global warming.
One of these projects is CLIMAAX, to help local entities or institutions in Europe that are behind in their adaptation plans. “We propose a work methodology and are looking for 70 implementers who will replicate the solution. Imagine a community of irrigators in Catalonia worried about drought and high temperatures that change flowering. They will be able to present themselves and get financial support, and our advice and tools. They will have the possibility of hiring a technician to work on the ground and carry out a study to find out how the climate in that area will evolve in the coming decades and how this will affect their activities,” explains Daniel Sempere-Torres, professor at the School. of UPC Roads and director of CRAHI.
In addition, Catalonia will be one of the four large-scale testing territories in the EU (along with southeastern Finland, Denmark and central Portugal) of the RESIST initiative, which aims to strengthen the resilience and increase the adaptive capacity of twelve climate-vulnerable EU regions. They will share good practices and strategies, and transfer knowledge and innovative solutions to eight twin regions.
“When we talk about climate change we do it in the long term, with models that take into account how the CRAHI of the UPC works on early warning systems and long-term projects to implement new technologies and good practices with the aim of “minimize the effects of rising temperatures. Scientists are coming together to face the challenges of global warming emissions, to interpret how the major climate variables will move in 2100.” One of those variables is already clear. “In 2050 the trend in the south of Catalonia is for there to be less precipitation or for it to be concentrated, so that in the very long term plans can be made such as not allowing certain urban extensions to be located in flood risk areas. Or not give water concessions, recommend farmers change the crop, study what type of forest management we need and redo emergency plans.”
What is clear, according to the director of CRAHI, is that “we must change the way we live, which is the most difficult thing, but it is what we have to do. What we have known until now will change, we will have a warmer environment, with more heat waves like those of 2023 or more.”