Climate change is accelerating, leading to increased rainfall, drought, storms, flooding, and sea level rise, particularly impacting the NWE region with its extensive estuarine systems. How can we better prepare these areas for climate change for the long term?
The overall objective of BONSAI is to make flood defence systems in tidal estuaries of NWE more short and long term resilient against climate change by learning from sites in different climate zones over Europe and developing and sharing pro-active and responsive measures. Organisations responsible for flood resilience and societal partners in tidal estuaries in NWE are empowered through capacity building to strengthen their resilience and better act in case of flood threats caused by extreme weather events.
The main results are:
- a transnational strategy for national authorities and 3 action plans for regional and local authorities,
- 5 solutions on increasing robustness and resilience and enhancing disaster management and
- multiple training schemes and courses on flood disaster management and flood resilience and 1 joint transnational flood academy .
BONSAI aims to apply a holistic approach that is focusing on (short and long term) flood defence system resilience and the improved disaster management. Different NWE countries tackle these challenges from their own perspective. Transnational cooperation between the NWE regions and beyond is essential because estuarine systems and climate change transcend borders, offering opportunities for mutual learning and resilience building.
The BONSAI approach is unique,
- bridging the three layers of the multi-layer water safety approach: prevention, disaster management, and spatial planning
- simulating shifting climate zones based on the application of insights from more southern regions to northern regions and
- focusing on increased cooperation between countries to learn from each other, north learning from south as well as south learning from north.
