About Trees4Adapt

Project Overview

Climate change and biodiversity loss are deeply connected, yet we still know little about how they shape each other and the risks their interactions cause. The EU-funded Trees4Adapt project is working to close these gaps. We focus on tree-based solutions (i.e., nature-based solutions involving trees), aiming to strengthen Europe’s adaptation and resilience to climate change in a way that supports people and nature. Our researchers are gathering data from across Europe (from the Mediterranean to the boreal north) to develop tools that help decision-makers unlock the potential of trees. What makes Trees4Adapt stand out is its hands-on approach: stakeholders from the local to EU-level are involved from the start, helping shape solutions for real-world use. Our goal is a future that is both more biodiverse and better prepared for climate change.

Project Website

Project Objectives

  1. Advance understanding of the complex risks that result from climate change, biodiversity loss, and their interactions to key systems in Europe 
  2. Assess and improve the design and implementation of tree-based solutions to build climate resilience and restore biodiversity more effectively, and identify and reduce the use of actions resulting in maladaptation 
  3. Enable decision-makers across Europe to prioritise actions and investments towards effective climate change and biodiversity loss mitigation and adaptation strategies

 

Methods

Trees4Adapt will achieve its objectives and high-level impact through a mixed-methods methodology, at the heart of which are the project's stakeholders. In this way, Trees4Adapt is highly co-creational and takes a trandisciplinary approach to research. Activities are grouped into work packages, which focus on: 

WP1 - Establishing empirical understanding of the effects of climate change and biodiversity loss.

WP2 - Assessing local-level perceptions of risks from climate change and biodiversity loss through stakeholder-centred activities and field surveys in three case study regions in Finland, Germany, and Portugal. 

WP3 - Integrating ecological and socioeconomic data to develop bioeconomic models that assess the economic practicality of tree-based solution management compared to business-as-usual management

WP4 - Developing a pan-European framework to identify European regions likely to experience similarrisks from climate change, biodiversity loss, and their interactions, and where tree-based solutions are most likely to have positive impact 

WP5 - Ensuring active stakeholder engagement across the project, and ensuring that project outputs are tailored for use by their target stakeholder groups. 

WP6 - Facilitates the project's coordination and management, including interfacing with the European Commission

 

Funding

Funded by the European Union under the Horizon Europe Programme, Grant Agreement No. 101213184 (Trees4Adapt). Trees4Adapt is part of the Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change.