What methods of interaction with users have proved to better perform for advanced co-development of climate services in the water sector?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
María José Polo ◽  
Rafael Pimentel ◽  
María José Pérez-Palazón ◽  
Pedro Torralbo ◽  
Little Lorna ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Scenarios ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Water Sector ◽  
Online Surveys ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Climate Service ◽  
Development Approach ◽  
Adequate Communication ◽  
Key Questions

<p>A wide offer of climate data sources/services is currently available dealing with future climate scenarios and projections. A huge effort has been done at European scale to promote and share openly this information. However, their use is not extensive and their potential is frequently underexploited. There is usually a significant gap between the complexity of climate metadata and the users’ capability of exploiting them. Furthermore, this gap is also found between the expertise of climate data providers and the every-day operation of the different potentially interested end-users. Additionally, in some sectors users are not aware of climate service capabilities which prevent them from valuing and then demanding such services.</p><p>In this context, co-development improves and fosters climate services’ usability and uptake when compared to a traditional one-side development approach, since it best meets users’ needs and demands. However, co-development can be time-consuming for both sides and less effective than expected if an adequate communication design is missing. In this context, what methods of interaction with users have proved to better perform for advanced co-development of climate services? And, what factors have best motivated users to interact? are key questions to provide guidelines and profit from the on-going initiatives.</p><p>Three different approaches with users (mainly in the water sector) were tested: guided online surveys (anonymous users); focus groups (users known to different partners in the project); case study clients (users regularly interact with project partners). Indicators and metrics were used to evaluate and value the contribution from each group in the context of co-development of climate services that give future projections of water availability. The results of this comparison provide a conceptual framework to design and apply co-development strategies for climate services oriented to different groups within the water sector.</p><p>This work was funded by the project AQUACLEW, which is part of ERA4CS, an ERA-NET initiated by JPI Climate, and funded by FORMAS (SE), DLR (DE), BMWFW (AT), IFD (DK), MINECO (ES), ANR (FR) with co-funding by the European Commission [Grant 690462].</p>

scholarly journals Experiences with virtual schools on “Climate data for impact assessments”

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janette Bessembinder ◽  
Judith Klostermann ◽  
Rutger Dankers ◽  
Vladimir Djurdjevic ◽  
Tomas Halenka
Keyword(s):  
Summer School ◽  
Climate Modeling ◽  
Virtual Schools ◽  
Virtual School ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Impact Modelling ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Impact Models

<p>The provision of climate services to users is a fast developing field. In support of this development, the IS-ENES3 project, funded within the EC Horizon2020 program, organized three schools on “Climate data for impact assessments” in 2020 and 2021. In an Autumn school, a Spring school and a Summer school, climate scientists and impact scientists were brought together. An important aim of the schools was to enhance interaction between Vulnerability-Impact-Adaptation (VIA) researchers, climate services providers and climate researchers. Another aim was to provide an overview of information on climate modeling, climate data, impact modelling and climate services based on the work of the IS-ENE3 project.</p><p>In the first three weeks a series of lectures was given, covering topics such as climate data and modelling, impact models, portals for accessing and processing climate data, setting-up impact assessments, and communication of results to stakeholders. In the last three weeks the participants worked in small groups of one climate scientist with one impact scientist on a case study under the guidance of the course lecturers. Impact and climate researchers were combined on purpose to let them experience how they could help each other.</p><p>Originally the schools were planned to take place on-site (e.g. in Prague) during one week; however, due to COVID-19 the schools had to be transformed to virtual schools with two weekly sessions during six weeks. Although the virtual set-up had some disadvantages (e.g. less possibilities for networking), there were also some advantages (e.g. the possibility to record the lectures and make them available to a broader audience; more time to explore and work with climate data in between the sessions, no CO<sub>2</sub> emissions for travelling). During this presentation we will present the set-up of the schools and the conversion to a virtual school. We will focus on the lessons learnt and the evaluation of the virtual schools by the participants and give some recommendations for similar schools and how to link the climate and VIA research communities .</p>

Options and challenges for collaboration on climate service related activities at KNMI and KMI

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janette Bessembinder ◽  
Rozemien De Troch
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Climate Modelling ◽  
Climatic Data ◽  
Climate Scenarios ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Societal Needs ◽  
Climate Service ◽  
Meteorological Institute

<p>National meteorological institutes have generally a longstanding scientific expertise in climate research, climatological observations, and state-of-the-art climate modelling. In the context of climate change this expertise and service provision of climatic data, information and knowledge is of crucial importance to meet the societal needs. Furthermore, in each country the provision of climate services is generally arranged differently and strongly determined by governance, the official strategy and tasks of the meteorological institutes, as well as financing.</p><p>To better align the activities between national climate service providers, the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium successfully applied for the ERA4CS action for the exchange of staff, aiming to contribute to the alignment of R&D programmes, tools/instruments and/or climate related agendas of both countries.</p><p>In the context of climate services, previous interactions between both institutes are mainly related to sporadically contacts between scientists in need of climatological data or information on methods for the definition of e.g. climate scenarios. However, Belgium and the Netherlands are neighbouring, both small countries, and climate change doesn’t stop at the border. Furthermore, coastal and inland regions along the borders are yet very sensitive to the impacts of climate change, and thus might cause cross-border issues in the future. </p><p>Therefore, a two-way visit of senior staff responsible for climate services in both institutes is planned for early 2020. The visits aim to identify the differences and similarities on how climate services are currently provided and the broader context in which climate services are developed and delivered (legal mandate, what other organisations deliver climate services, relation with policy e.g. National Adaptation Strategies). More specifically, the services related to both current and future climate conditions (i.e. climate scenarios), the respective impact sectors and users/stakeholders of the climate services and the interaction with them, the used tools and methods for the creation of climate services, and the outreach and communication strategies for climate services will be discussed through informal interactions, meetings and presentations. </p><p>An overview of these discussions together with conclusions on how climate-service related actions can be aligned and consolidated within future collaborations, will be presented.</p>

scholarly journals Towards a Traceable Climate Service: Assessment of Quality and Usability of Essential Climate Variables

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yijian Zeng ◽  
Zhongbo Su ◽  
Iakovos Barmpadimos ◽  
Adriaan Perrels ◽  
Paul Poli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Quality ◽  
Service Needs ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Carbon Cycles ◽  
Usability Assessment ◽  
Information Products ◽  
Climate Service

Climate services are becoming the backbone to translate climate knowledge, data & information into climate-informed decision-making at all levels, from public administrations to business operators. It is essential to assess the technical and scientific quality of the provided climate data and information products, including their value to users, to establish the relation of trust between providers of climate data and information and various downstream users. The climate data and information products (i.e., from satellite, in-situ and reanalysis) shall be fully traceable, adequately documented and uncertainty quantified and can provide sufficient guidance for users to address their specific needs and feedbacks. This paper discusses details on how to apply the quality assurance framework to deliver timely assessments of the quality and usability of Essential Climate Variable (ECV) products. It identifies an overarching structure for the quality assessment of single product ECVs (i.e., consists of only one single variable), multi-product ECVs (i.e., more than one single parameter), thematic products (i.e., water, energy and carbon cycles), as well as the usability assessment. To support a traceable climate service, other than rigorously evaluating the technical and scientific quality of ECV products, which represent the upstream of climate services, how the uncertainty propagates into the resulting benefit (utility) for the users of the climate service needs to be detailed.

scholarly journals Mind the Gap: Towards a Typology of Climate Service Usability Gaps

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 1512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Raaphorst ◽  
Gerben Koers ◽  
Gerald Jan Ellen ◽  
Amy Oen ◽  
Bjørn Kalsnes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
The North ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Climate Service ◽  
North And South

Literature on climate services presents a large diversity of different services and uses. Many climate services have ‘usability gaps’: the information provided, or the way it is visualized, may be unsuitable for end users to inform decision-making processes in relation to adaptation against climate change impacts or for the development of policies to this end. The aim of this article is to contribute to more informed and efficient decision-making processes in climate adaptation by developing a typology of usability gaps for climate services. To do so, we first present and demonstrate a so-called ‘climate information design’ (CID) template with which to study and potentially improve the visual communicative qualities of climate services. Then, two climates services are selected for a further, qualitative explorative case study of two cases in the north and south of the Netherlands. A combination of focus group sessions and semi-structured interviews are used to collect data from Dutch governmental stakeholders as well as private stakeholders and NGOs. This data is then coded to discover what usability gaps are present. We then present twelve different types of usability gaps that were encountered as a typology. This typology could be used to improve and redesign climate services.

The overwhelming jungle of climate information and the role of climate services.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlo Buontempo
Keyword(s):  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
National Programmes ◽  
Relevant Variables ◽  
Engineering Standards ◽  
Climate Service ◽  
Different Sources

<div>Climate adaptation often requires high resolution information about the expected changes in the statistical distribution of user-relevant variables. Thanks to targeted national programmes, research projects and international climate service initiatives  this kind of information is not only becoming more easily available but it is also making its way into building codes, engineering standards as well as the risk assessments for financial products.  If such an increase in the use of climate data can be seen as a positive step towards the construction of a climate resilient society, it is also true that the inconsistencies that exist between the information derived from different sources of information, have the potential to reduce the user uptake, increase the costs of adaptation and even undermine the credibility of both climate services and the underpinning climate science.</div><div>This paper offers a personal reflection on the emerging user requirements in this field. The presenation also aims at suggesting  some prelimimary ideas in support of the development of appropriate methodologies for extracting robust evidence from different sources in a scalable way.</div>

Selecting climate projections for services: the DRIAS-2020 dataset

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lola Corre ◽  
Samuel Somot ◽  
Jean-Michel Soubeyroux ◽  
Sébastien Bernus ◽  
Agathe Drouin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Easy Access ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Climate Scenarios ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Quantile Mapping ◽  
The Past ◽  
Climate Service ◽  
Climatic Information

<p>The French National Climate Service “Drias, futures of climate” was launched in 2012, as a response of the French scientific community to society’s need for climatic information. It is mainly composed of a website that provides easy access to the best available climate data to characterize climate change over France. Latest advances developed in 2020 include the availability of a new set of regional climate scenarios corrected by a quantile-mapping based method with correction depending on the weather regime. As for the previous set, the climate projections are based on the EURO-CORDEX ensemble, whose contents have been greatly enriched over the past years. Singular effort was done to build a robust and synthetic set that well represents the uncertainties of climate change over France. The different criteria defined to select the simulations will be presented, and the range of the projected climate change will be examined, with respect to larger ensembles.</p><p> </p>

Visualisation in climate services: status and recommendations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Terrado ◽  
Diana Urquiza ◽  
Sara Octenjak ◽  
Andria Nicodemou ◽  
Dragana Bojovic ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Multidimensional Data ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Visual Encoding ◽  
Choropleth Maps ◽  
Climate Service

<p>The visual communication of climate information is one of the cornerstones of climate services. Characteristics that make a climate service self-explanatory rely on the visual modes it employs, e.g. maps, graphs or infographics, and the visual channels applied for the translation of multidimensional data, e.g. combination of colours, shapes or slopes. </p><p>Climate scientists have traditionally used predetermined types of visualisations to present climate data, including flood maps, heat maps or choropleth maps. However, such a tradition neglects a plethora of stakeholders (e.g. businesses, policy makers, citizens) that are increasingly involved in climate adaptation and that are less familiar with the traditional ways of presenting these data. In this sense, there is a need to advance towards climate services visualisations that can guide climate change adaptation decisions by helping users to interpret and use the information as simply and quickly as possible.</p><p>Effective visualisations should achieve a balance between the amount of represented data, its robustness (i.e. the representation of scientific confidence and consensus) and saliency (i.e. the relevance of the information to user needs). Therefore, choices regarding the representation of probabilities (e.g. using terciles or information on extreme events), the representation of uncertainty (e.g. showing the ensemble range or filtering by a skill threshold), the type of visual encoding (e.g. selection of the colour palette, use of shapes and sizes) as well as the terminology and language used, are some aspects that can significantly impact the way users interpret climate data.</p><p>We describe the main challenges for the visualisation of climate services identified during a visualisation workshop with representatives from 22 climate services projects involved in the Climateurope network, an EU-funded coordination and support action. In break-out group discussions, participants shared their experiences in the development of effective climate services visualisations and the lessons learned. Findings show that the chosen representation of uncertainty and probabilities tends to be case specific and that there is a preference for interactive visualisations where information is gradually disclosed. Minimising the use of technical concepts in visualisations was highlighted as an objective that requires further attention. The analysis of the obtained results provides a picture of the current status of the climate services visualisation field in Europe and gives recommendations for the development of the next generation of climate services.</p>

scholarly journals Trials, Errors, and Improvements in Coproduction of Climate Services

2019 ◽  
Vol 100 (8) ◽  
pp. 1419-1428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik W. Kolstad ◽  
Oda N. Sofienlund ◽  
Hanna Kvamsås ◽  
Mathew A. Stiller-Reeve ◽  
Simon Neby ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Science ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Service Projects ◽  
Climate Service

AbstractClimate change yields both challenges and opportunities. In both cases, costly adaptations and transformations are necessary and desirable, and these must be based on realistic and relevant climate information. However, it is often difficult for climate scientists to communicate this information to decision-makers and stakeholders, and it can be equally difficult for such actors to interpret and put the information to use. In this essay, we discuss experiences and present recommendations for scientists producing climate services. The basis is our work in several climate service projects. One of them aimed to provide local-scale climate data for municipalities in western Norway and to explore how the data were interpreted and implemented. The project was first based solely on climate science expertise, and the participants did not have sufficient competence on coproduction and knowledge about the regulatory and political landscape in which municipalities operate. Initially, we also subscribed to an outdated idea of climate services, where knowledge providers (climate scientists) “deliver” their information to knowledge users (e.g., municipal planners). Increasingly, as stressed in the literature on coproduction of knowledge, we learned that climate service should be an iterative process where actionable information is coproduced through two-way dialogue. On the basis of these and other lessons learned the hard way, we provide a set of concrete recommendations on how to embed the idea of coproduction from the preproposal stage to beyond the end of climate service projects.

scholarly journals Seasonal Forecast Climate Data and Hydropower Production in the Douro Basin, in Portugal

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Paulo Alexandre Diogo ◽  
Pedro Beça ◽  
Sofia Simões ◽  
Filipa Amorim ◽  
Babar Mujtaba
Keyword(s):  
Power Systems ◽  
Rainfall Runoff ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Seasonal Climate ◽  
Climate Forecasts ◽  
Hydropower Production ◽  
Climate Service ◽  
Daily Scale ◽  
Douro River

The project CLIM2POWER aims at developing a climate service including state-of-the art seasonal climate forecasts in the planning of the operation of the power systems. This work presents part of the project, addressing the forecasting of the hydropower generation in a case study area, the Portuguese part of the transboundary Douro River basin. Rainfall-runoff modelling was performed on a daily scale using three ensemble members of seasonal climate data (six months) for Portuguese territory crossed with three daily inflow scenarios from Spanish territory defined according to historical observed data. The obtained results reflect the fact that seasonal climate forecast present a wide variation of scenarios and also the fact that hydropower production in Portuguese territory is highly dependent on transboundary inflows. On the other hand, the implemented approach successfully produced consistent runoff and hydropower production results although improvements on the identification of the most probable scenarios are yet required.

scholarly journals Towards more effective visualisations in climate services: best practices and recommendations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Terrado ◽  
Luz Calvo ◽  
Diana Urquiza ◽  
Sara Octenjak ◽  
Andria Nicodemou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Distribution Functions ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Service Projects ◽  
Choropleth Maps ◽  
Climate Service

<p>The visual communication of climate information is one of the cornerstones of climate services. Characteristics that make a climate service self-explanatory rely on the type of representation used, e.g. interactive or static maps, charts or infographics, and the visual channels applied for the translation of multi-dimensional data, e.g. combination of colour, size, opacity, shapes and other characteristics.</p><p>Climate scientists have traditionally used predetermined types of visualisations to represent climate data, including maps (e.g. flood maps, heat maps, choropleth maps), line graphs, and probability distribution functions (PDFs). However, such a tradition neglects a plethora of stakeholders (e.g. businesses, policy makers, citizens) that are increasingly involved in climate adaptation and that are less familiar with the traditional ways of presenting these data.</p><p>Effective visualisations should achieve a balance between the amount of represented data, its robustness (i.e. the representation of scientific confidence and consensus) and saliency (i.e. the relevance of the information to user needs). Choices regarding the representation of uncertainty as well as the terminology and language used in visualisations, can significantly impact the way users interpret climate data. This calls for a standardised approach for the visualisation of climate services, which can benefit from best practices applied in other disciplines, such as user experience, visualisation design, graphic design and cognitive psychology.</p><p>We describe the main challenges for the visualisation of climate services identified during a visualisation workshop with representatives from 22 climate service projects involved in the Climateurope network, an EU-funded coordination and support action. In break-out group discussions, participants shared their experiences in the development of climate services visualisations and the lessons learned. Findings show that the chosen representation of uncertainty tends to be case specific and that, in general, there is a preference for interactive visualisations where information is gradually disclosed. Inter- and transdisciplinary approaches and aspects related to terminology and language, which are part of the service co-development, require further attention. The analysis of the obtained results provides a picture of the current practice of the climate services visualisation field in Europe and allows to identify recommendations for the development of the next generation of climate services.</p>

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