INtegrating SEA-level Projections in climate services for coastal adaptation

While future sea-level rise is recognized to be a major threat to coasts, sea-level rise related information currently available is not customized to the practice of coastal adaptation. Indeed, coastal managers require services tai-lored to users’ needs including full information on uncertainties, high-end estimates, accurate storm and flood mo-deling, shoreline change projections and relevant adaptation options within the context of current practices and governance arrangements.

“Climate services provide climate information in a way that assists decision making by individuals and organizations”
(World Meteorological Organisation)

INSeaPTION is a research project, which aims at addressing these limitations by co-designing and co-developing, together with users, coastal climate services based on state-of-the art sea-level rise, impact, adaptation and transdisciplinary science. The project will deliver coastal climate services based on end-users' needs and their decision and governance context, covering the whole chain of climate service development from global to regional mean and extreme sea-level projections with their impacts and uncertainties to local sea-level, coastal impacts and adaptation pathways.

Research developements and needs required to develop coastal climate services (adapted from Le Cozannet et al. 2017)

Climate services may support adaptation or mitigation policies, and may be supplied to private and public users of climate information, as well as researchers. They cover all timescales (Past, present and future: seasonal, decadal, centennial to millennial timescales) and space scales (international, national, regional, local). They are supported by observing and modeling capabilities, by tools such as information systems and user interface platforms. Finally, they also include capacity development activities such as education and training.

Specifically, the project will co-design and co-develop the following coastal climate services with several groups of diverse users:

• Global to regional coastal climate service, addressing the needs of major companies, international organizations and govern-ments to have globally consistent information on sea-level rise, its impacts and adaptation pathways for long-term locational planning, climate policy making and financing adaptation and loss & damages.
• Regional to local coastal climate services addressing the needs of planners and policy makers forlocal tailored sea-level projec-tions, impact and adaptation information useful for long-term development, infrastructure and land-use planning for two high impact territories: the Maldives and French Polynesia.

"Both global and local services address the committed impacts of sea-level rise and potential large adaptation needs arising in the case polar ice-sheets melt rapidly"

INSeaPTION is supported by the “European Research Area for Climate Services” (ERA4CS), (1.5M€), with 700k€ of additional funding from the partner organizations: the Global Climate Forum (Germany), the universities of Balearic islands (Spain), of La Rochelle (France), of Utrecht (The Netherlands), CREOCEAN and the French Geological Survey (France).