The primary goal of VALORADA is to enhance the use of available municipal data and information used by regional and local administrations (social, economic, land-use data) to adapt to climate change and to support local administrations in the improvement of data-management practices. Our approach involves co-designing climate-data services to harness the "climate value" of locally sourced datasets in different regions and communities. The tools and methodologies developed within VALORADA aim to achieve a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of 7, which includes testing applications and ensuring a clear pathway for their upscaling.
We have structured our approach into three stages. In this first progress report, we refer mostly to Stage 1 and 2 and emphasise how we are transitioning to Stage 3.
Stage 1 Understanding Key Issues: In this initial stage, we focused on identifying the key concerns regarding climate risk in our demonstration regions. This served as a crucial entry point for discussing ways to characterize risks in a manner tailored to the needs and values of local stakeholders. Key activities in Stage 1 centred around supporting the creation of a community of practice in each demonstrator region with the ultimate goal of strengthening community collaboration on data management. Several co-design and co-development activities in the form of in-person workshops were implemented by different work packages (WP1, WP2, WP3, WP4, and WP5). This co-development process has unfolded through a continuous online communication with each of the five demonstration regions.
Stage 2: Operationalisation: Based on inputs gathered during Stage 1, Stage 2 focuses on developing data-manipulation tools and climate-resilience data and information catalogues.
Key activities in Stage 2: Two sets of catalogues are being developed. On the one hand, the Geonetworked catalogues (currently under preparation), where data from each demonstration region will be included and linked to data visualization tools. Using these catalogues, additional services for data ingestion, co-registration, and visualization of climate-relevant information are being co-created. On the other hand, the "Pedagogical" catalogue (currently under preparation) will present generic metadata and examples of how data can support climate risk indicators, providing guidelines for replication and uptake in new regions.
Collaboration across work packages (WP1-WP4) ensures that tools are co-developed with end users and align with end-user needs. Prototyping and a first demonstration phase to test these tools will take place in early and mid 2025, with feedback guiding improvements for a second demonstration phase in late 2025 / early 2026.
Stage 3: Usability and Impact Assessment: As we transition into Stage 3, our focus will be on assessing tool usability and evaluating the impact of VALORADA’s climate-data services. Practical activities are expected to enhance climate data utilization in each demonstration region, emphasizing collective learning among local stakeholders. We will gather feedback through workshops (WP2) in order to promote the use of these tools.Additionally during stage 3, we will focus on replicating and extending the adoption of VALORADA’s tools and catalogues to other European regions. In this stage, WP3 will further support building communities of practice (CoP) in each demonstrator. Throughout the three stages we are generating VALORADA’s Results Inventory, in order to identify early on the potential for dissemination of tools and methods, and to ensure their dissemination complies with respective Intellectual Property Rights .
