Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - BINGO (Bringing INnovation to onGOing water management – A better future under climate change)

Teaser

Bringing INnovation to onGOing water management – a better future under climate change (BINGO) aims at providing practical knowledge and tools to end users, water managers, decision and policy-makers affected by climate change to better cope with all climate projections...

Summary

Bringing INnovation to onGOing water management – a better future under climate change (BINGO) aims at providing practical knowledge and tools to end users, water managers, decision and policy-makers affected by climate change to better cope with all climate projections, including droughts and floods.
There are plenty of long-term concepts on how to face climate change. But how can decision-makers and end users face the intermediate challenges climate change brings? What is the right path for inter-annual to decadal time scales? BINGO aims both at reducing the uncertainty of near-term climate predictions and developing response strategies that may help society to better manage the remaining uncertainty.
BINGO will provide demand-driven solutions for a number of specific climate-related challenges in Europe that focus on different geographical scales and are usable by a diverse spectrum of end users. After developing decadal climate predictions with a specific focus on extreme events, BINGO will then model the impacts of changing climate on the water cycle and water demands, and analyse how this affects key sectors. In parallel, BINGO will establish adaptation measures, built taking into account critical socio-economic factors, financing and policy contexts as well as scenarios of land use, urban pressures and water demands.
The project solutions will be co-produced, tested and validated by a range of key end users at 6 Research Sites (RS) across Europe, located in Norway, Germany, The Netherlands, Cyprus, Spain and Portugal. The objectives of the project will be achieved through a work plan based in 7 work packages. BINGO activities are planned in order to facilitate end users’ participation and to ensure the expected co-production. Last but not least, the cultural background, administrative systems and past experiences are different between Northern and Southern Europe countries represented in BINGO will account for rich and varied discussions and approaches to risk treatment, therefore increasing the social value and transferability of results to other sites/countries. End users and water managers will have available information on specific future scenarios at the space and time resolution fitting their needs, and will be engaged in a knowledge alliance to build a shared awareness and perception of challenges related to climate and weather extremes.
BINGO will address and extend the knowledge and awareness on water climate change adaptation to key strategic uses such as urban water supply, agriculture, reservoir management and hydropower, ecosystems & biodiversity, minding water resources protection and sustainability. Therefore, BINGO will contribute to a better implementation of the existing EU Directives and Strategies.

Work performed

BINGO has now (M30) completed 62,5% of its duration with full compliance of the Deliverables and the Milestones committed on the DoA. A surplus of activities can even be reported, such as additional climate work for increasing the robustness of the decadal predictions for the 6 Research Sites (RS) and for making the climate data publicly available through the tool DECO interface. Additionally, the team has had more face-to-face team meetings than initially planned, for complete WP´s integration, visibility and dissemination of progress results.
In summary, the predictions and downscaling for present and future climate were finished for the 6 RS and the results made available for the hydrological, hydraulic and water quality models running. These models were fully calibrated for past conditions and are now being used to simulate the impact of near future climate and land use on water availability. Based on these results, in the coming period (P3), the full risk analysis cycle will be completed in the 6 RS, as well as the co-production of adaptation measures, and its benefits, costs and social added values.
During the 30 months, the BINGO team has learned that face-to-face meetings of the Communities of Practice (CoPs) are much more adequate than any virtual tools to create the trust, confidence, common understanding and momentum that are needed to build up powerful and effective stakeholder’s engagement. 4 out of 6 CoP workshops took place at all 6 BINGO RS and have been instrumental to involve decision-makers responsible for managing water systems, as well as relevant stakeholder and multiplier organisations related to the water sector. By strengthening end user involvement from the very beginning, BINGO is already boosting the understanding of climate change, the innovation capacity and the integration of new knowledge. A sound assessment of the impact of the CoPs can only be done after the completion of the project, when CoPs will have moved from discussion to action mode, and both their action output as well as their sustainability beyond BINGO can be assessed.
Apart from this formalised assessment, a more content-oriented analysis of the CoP-process so far is also promising. The workshops were focusing on site-specific challenges and actions, but were following a common overarching methodology and roadmap approach. This is an important feature to ensure and foster transferability, comparability and impact of the CoP workshop results. The impact of BINGO CoPs will also go beyond site-specific effects, as the CoP approach is accompanied by a cross-cutting study that analyses the CoP workshops carried out so far. This reflexive study will derive important common barriers and success factors for CoPs, as well as extract lessons learnt for future set-up of other communities of practice.

Final results

During the first two reporting periods, BINGO has already been promoted at numerous events in Europe, Asia, Middle-East and North America. The link to other programs, networks and events through the Project Advisory Board (PAB) has already materialised through a couple of activities. Furthermore, the 3rd project meeting at Mülheim (M24) was an important event to continue systematic screening of additional relevant projects and activities, in strong collaboration of all partners and the PAB.
BINGO has also established successful working relationships with further H2020 projects which have actively promoted and presented BINGO approaches and results at international scientifically oriented conferences, as well as at industrial fairs and exhibitions.
To give a further boost to the linking and networking activities of BINGO, a dedicated Action Plan was developed shortly after the M24 project meeting, results expected to materialise primarily during the final reporting period.
Following the invitation from EC to co-organise the ECCA 2019 at Lisbon, Portugal, it was decided that the BINGO Final Conference will be embed in the ECCA 2019.
The BINGO’s project Coordinators will be participating at 8th World Water Forum, and at the Adaptation Futures Conference 2018. During these events an intense promotion of ECCA 2019 and an invitation to participants outside Europe will be done.
In summary, BINGO project has managed to reach out to a large number of end users, policy makers, the scientific community and the broader public: Successful local CoPs, 12 800+ visitors to the website, participation in11 scientific conferences, 45 press releases and news, almost 1200 followers through social media networks, links with more than 20 other networks, projects and initiatives.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.projectbingo.eu/.