This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: How can regions better adapt their water and soil resources to the impacts of climate change? After four years of research, the European collaborative project Blue Transition, led by the LIAG Institute for Applied Geophysics in Hanover, takes stock.
The final report brings together the findings from 16 pilot regions in six countries and identifies three key levers to strengthen climate resilience: changing land use, improving soil health and diversifying water resources and optimizing their use. The Interreg North Sea project Blue Transition investigated, through an interdisciplinary approach, how regions in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden can become more resilient in the long term to periods of drought, changing precipitation patterns, salinization and other impacts of climate change in the North Sea Region. To this end, scientific findings on groundwater, soils and land use were combined with questions of practical implementation and governance.
The 16 pilot regions show how strongly solution approaches depend on the respective local conditions. In France and Flanders, for example, the focus was on the joint management of water resources and the needs of ecosystems. In southern Sweden and Denmark, new approaches to groundwater and urban water management were investigated.
In Germany and the Netherlands, pilot regions addressed, among other topics, the improvement of soil health, nitrate pollution and cooperation between agriculture and science. Across the different pilot approaches, several key success factors emerged for implementing the three levers to strengthen a region's climate resilience: "In 16 pilot regions, we were able to show that there are many concrete pathways toward more climate-resilient water and soil management. What matters is scientific systems understanding, long-term monitoring and robust data.
Only when these are combined with practice and policy do solutions emerge that have a lasting impact and can be transferred to other regions," says Prof. Mike Müller-Petke, project lead of Blue Transition and head of research department at the LIAG Institute for Applied Geophysics. A key finding of Blue Transition is the value of international and interdisciplinary exchange.
Successful adaptation does not arise from technical solutions alone, but from the interplay of scientific systems understanding, local experience, appropriate policy frameworks and long-term cooperation. Regions need sufficient scope to adapt solutions to their respective conditions and test new approaches. At the same time, exchange between regions and the connection of local experience with European objectives can help further develop successful approaches and increase their impact.
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