Pyrenees4clima

The Working Community of the Pyrenees (CTP), through the Pyrenean Observatory of Climate Change (OPCC), leads the new Pyrenees4clima project in which AR+I is an associate. The main objective is to strengthen resilience in the Pyrenees through the implementation of Climate Change adaptation measures. The project, titled "Towards a climate-resilient transborder mountain community in the Pyrenees", is part of the European LIFE program initiated in October 2023 and will run until December 2030.

The project will follow the implementation of the Pyrenean Climate Change Strategy (EPiCC), the first European strategy for climate change designed to unify policies and regional contexts and accelerate climate action policies in the Pyrenees. Pyrenees4clima will allow for in-depth work on multisectoral and multiterritorial consensus to establish a robust governance in the fight against climate change.

The project's implementation is organized into 12 work packages led by some of the project partners, forming north-south tandems such as the Meteorological Service of Catalonia and MeteoFrance, the Pyrenean Institute of Ecology-CSIC and the National Botanical Conservatory of the Pyrenees and Midi-Pyrénées, the Pyrenean Agency and CREAF, NASUVINSA, the AECT Pirineus-Pyrénées, the Pyrénées Vivantes Network, and the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the Catalan Office of Climate Change, and the Occitanie region, or the OPCC-CTP itself.

AR+I actively participates in various working groups or Work Packages (WPs). On the one hand, WP2-CLIMATE will update all climate information and work on both homogenization and regional-scale climate projections and the proposal and elaboration of climate indicators, tasks currently following the work lines of the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences team. Additionally, our territory has been proposed as one of the pilot cases for the study of altitudinal temperature gradients and as a control zone for snow modeling.

In WP3-RESILIENT NATURAL AREAS, projects monitoring ecology and biodiversity, such as the monitoring of Pyrenean snowbed vegetation, or the study of phenological aspects of certain forests, will be continued. Also in the field of improving the resilience of natural areas, another of the experiments in Andorra will assess future national water resources by combining models of water management, seasonal forecasting and climate scenarios.

In WP4-ADAPTED MOUNTAIN ECONOMY, specific tasks will be undertaken to deepen our understanding of the impact of climate change on ski resorts, with the aim of proposing comprehensive adaptation roadmaps. Moreover, AR+I will play a role in revitalizing and enhancing agro-silvo-pastoral systems, especially within the timber value chain, adapting to and utilizing forests in the context of climate change in the Pyrenees.

In WP5-POPULATION & TERRITORY, in collaboration with the University of Barcelona and the University of Navarra, a pilot case will be conducted to monitor air quality in Andorra. The analysis will focus on how climatic extremes may affect air quality, and a low-cost technology test will be conducted to monitor pollutants in complementary locations.

The LIFE Program stands as the European Union's exclusive financial instrument dedicated solely to environmental and climate action. It is a major contributor to the European Green Deal. Pyrenees4clima aligns with the Strategic Integrated Projects (SIP) program, providing crucial support for monitoring, development, and implementation of adaptation and mitigation strategies to combat climate change.