Transcend is a 4-year Horizon project that focuses on developing Transformational Adaptation Policies (TAPs) to address water scarcity and achieve sustainable, equitable economic growth amid deep uncertainty. This initiative brings together over 50 researchers and professionals from 15 universities and institutions across Europe, South America, and Asia. The project started in January 2023 and will run until December 2026.
Worldwide, water resources management is increasingly challenged by water scarcity, exacerbated by climate change. These factors trigger and intensify further ecological and socioeconomic hazards, through cascading effects and complex interactions between systems. In this context, planning for the future is rife with uncertainties and conventional decision-making methods and policies are inadequate.
WHAT IS TRANSCEND
Transformational adaptation
Adaptation is one of the fundamental responses, along with mitigation, to address climate change and its impacts at both global and local scales.
Transformational adaptation means addressing the root causes of vulnerability, that is why the adoption of transformational adaptation policies (TAPs) involves the abandon of conventional policy making, which for centuries has relied on traditional grey infrastructure and efficiency to expand available resources. Transformational adaptation, instead, aims to modify the structure and function of socioeconomic and ecological systems.
Key barriers to its implementation, guidelines, and inspirational policies and practices around the world are presented in the policy brief Understanding Transformational Adaptation, that gathers the vision of European projects, within the framework of the EU Mission Adaptation Community.
