Climate change has long since been an undeniable phenomenon observed up close at many places on Earth. Climate change influences our everyday life, and thus has also an increasing impact on our quality of life. One of the key reasons is the dynamic development of societies which for decades significantly impacts the natural environment. This can be dramatically experienced nowadays by violent weather phenomena (e.g. storms, rainfalls). These problems are addressed by Global Challenges (GC). GC requires interdisciplinary expertise, and demands for solutions at scale due to their inherent complexity. Thus, HiDALGO2 aims to explore synergies between modelling, data acquisition, simulation, data analysis and visualisation along with achieving better scalability on current and future HPC and AI infrastructures to deliver highly-scalable solutions that can effectively utilise pre-exascale systems. The project focuses on five use cases from the environmental area: improving air quality in urban agglomerations, energy efficiency of buildings, renewable energy sources, wildfires and meteo-hydrological forecasting. The common feature of the modelling of the above simulations is the use of numerical analysis of fluid flows by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method, which is typically very compute-intensive. HiDALGO2 puts high emphasis on issues related to the scalability of solutions, the best adaptation of the software to the infrastructure (co-design) by using the appropriate benchmarking methodology and algorithmic optimization methods. This enables the efficient use of top-notch HPC systems to simulate complex structures with much greater accuracy not achievable for calculations using Cloud solutions. The quality of our solutions is assessed by uncertainty analysis carried out in ensemble runs mode. HiDALGO2 actively contributes to user communities from the EU by addressing the skills gap and sharing knowledge under organised specialised workflows and training.

Urban areas and traffic infrastructure linking such areas are highly vulnerable to climate change. Smart use of existing climate intelligence can increase urban resilience and generate added value for businesses and society at large. Based on the results of FP7 climate change, future internet and crisis preparedness projects (SUDPLAN, ENVIROFI, CRISMA) with an average TRL of 4-5 and following an agile and user-centred design process, end-users, purveyors and providers of climate intelligence will co-create an integrated Climate Services Information System (CSIS) to integrate resilience into urban infrastructure. As a result, CLARITY will provide an operational eco-system of cloud based climate services to calculate and present the expected effects of CC-induced and -amplified hazards at the level of risk, vulnerability and impact functions. CLARITY will offer what-If decision support functions to investigate the effects of adaptation measures and risk reduction options in the specific project context, and allow the comparison of alternative strategies. Four demonstration cases will showcase CLARITY climate services in different climatic, regional, infrastructure and hazard contexts in Italy, Sweden, Austria and Spain; focusing on the planning and implementation of urban infrastructure development projects. CLARITY will provide the practical means to include the effects of CC hazards and possible adaptation and risk management strategies into planning and implementation of such projects, focusing on increasing CC resilience. Decision makers involved in these projects will be empowered to perform climate proof and adaptive planning of adaptation and risk reduction options.

FIREURISK will develop, evaluate and disseminate a science-based integrated strategy to: 1) expand current wildland fire risk assessment systems, including critical factors of risk previously not covered; 2) produce effective measures to reduce current fire risk conditions, and 3) adapt management strategies to expected future climate and socio-economic changes. This will be achieved in close collaboration between researchers, stakeholders and citizens, integrating novel technologies, guidelines and policy recommendations to improve current systems and practices from regional to EU scales. The project will address all wildfire types, with particular focus on mega-fires, the Wildland Urban Interface and fire challenges in the Northern EU. A risk-centred management strategy will integrate wildfire prevention, suppression and restoration practices and policies in a holistic conceptual framework, and implement an operational platform that supports joint coordination, professional training and operational exercises, involving multiple stakeholders and addressing all relevant wildfire management tasks, to improve protection of citizens exposed to wildfires. FIREURISK will (a) model socio-economic issues and human activity influencing fire ignition, vulnerability and exposure, (b) evaluate the impact of National and EU policies on land use change, rural economy and development, in context of expected future fire regime changes, and (c) consider potential cascading effects linked to wildfire situations. This will allow FIREURISK to deliver innovative risk-informed regional planning approaches that are effective in increasing the resilience of local communities, ensuring safety and enhancing protection of assets and economic activity. The resulting advances in fire risk reduction will be linked to innovative organisational and efficient business models that promote cost-effective bio-economy and nature-based solutions.