IURC Climate Adaptation partners turn knowledge into action during study visits to Valencia and Bologna

Cities and regions from Europe, Asia and Australasia came together in Valencia and Bologna from 20–25 September 2026 for an IURC Advanced Cooperation Mission focused on practical solutions to flooding, heatwaves and other growing climate risks.

The five-day mission was organised within IURC Community of Practice 14 on Climate Adaptation, dedicated to data platforms, nature-based solutions (NBS) and citizen engagement for adapting to extreme water- and heat-related events. Hosted by the Region of Valencia and the Metropolitan City of Bologna, the visit brought partners from Europe, India, Japan and New Zealand together to move from peer learning towards the development of concrete collaborative actions and pilot projects.

Participants included representatives from Sofia, Hamburg, Kawasaki, Pimpri Chinchwad and Christchurch, alongside the Valencian hosts and invited representatives from Kumanovo. The mission built on several months of exchanges within CoP 14 on climate data platforms, digital twins, heat resilience, flooding and citizen-centred adaptation.

Valencia: combining climate intelligence, citizen engagement and practical adaptation

The programme opened in Valencia with an institutional welcome by Ruth Merino Peña, Vice Minister for Representation before the European Union and for International Affairs, followed by opening remarks from IURC Asia & Australasia Team Leader Pablo Gándara and an introduction to the programme by Silvia Martínez Rocher, Head of the European Affairs Coordination Unit of the Generalitat Valenciana.

A central element of the first day was the Climate Resilience Playbook workshop, facilitated by Living Urban Adaptation. Participants compared how floods and heatwaves affect their respective territories and explored how solutions could be transferred and adapted between cities. The exchange addressed climate data platforms and digital twins, green and grey infrastructure, nature-based solutions and approaches to involving civil society in adaptation.

On social media, the IURC Programme also shared how delegates from India, Japan, New Zealand and European cities and regions worked together on approaches to flood management and urban heat, including climate shelters, climate data platforms and digital twins.

The afternoon visit to Valencia’s Climate Change Observatory connected science, public policy and citizen engagement. Samira Khodayar Pardo, Head of the Meteorology and Climate Research Department at the Mediterranean Centre for Environmental Studies (CEAM), presented climate intelligence for emerging Mediterranean challenges. Further contributions addressed stakeholder engagement in climate adaptation, Valencia’s network of Climate Spaces and the role of the Observatory itself as both a climate shelter and a catalyst for public engagement.

Further presentations focused on the practical implementation of adaptation measures. Javier Marzo Muñoz, from the Climate Change Adaptation Service of the Generalitat Valenciana, presented examples of stakeholder engagement in adaptation policy, including the Forest Fire Adaptation Pathway in Xàbia and the Rosseta Living Lab in the Marjal dels Moros. These examples showed how local actors and communities can be directly involved in translating climate knowledge into practical resilience measures.

Jorge Blanco Coll, Director General for Environmental Quality and Environmental Education, addressed lessons learned from post-disaster waste management following the 2024 DANA, highlighting waste management as a critical but often underestimated component of climate-disaster response and recovery.

Learning from the 2024 DANA and rethinking urban flood protection

The second day placed particular emphasis on water-related risks and the lessons learned from the devastating 2024 DANA floods. The Generalitat Valenciana presented the challenges of post-disaster recovery, including the planned Metropolitan Park System and lessons from post-disaster waste management.

The IURC Programme also highlighted this dimension of the visit on X, sharing Recovery Commissioner Raúl Mérida Gordillo’s message on the objective of the recovery effort: “We bring quality of life and confidence back to citizens.” The discussions also examined how prevention and climate-risk financing can better complement physical adaptation measures.

Participants then moved from policy discussions to on-the-ground infrastructure. At Cabanyal, the delegation explored the city’s thunderstorm tank as a large-scale grey infrastructure solution for managing intense rainfall, alongside an urban sponge intervention at Plaça del Músic Antonio Eiximeno. The visit generated discussion on how cities can combine conventional drainage infrastructure with green and nature-based solutions rather than treating the two approaches separately.

The programme continued at Albufera Natural Park, where participants travelled to Tancat de la Pipa and explored wetland restoration, water management and hydrology as part of a wider landscape-scale approach to climate resilience.

The Valencian leg concluded in Alicante with a visit to La Marjal Urban Floodable Park, where representatives from Veolia explained how a public urban park can simultaneously provide recreational space and act as temporary water-storage infrastructure during extreme rainfall events.

Together, the visits illustrated a central message of the mission: climate adaptation increasingly requires integrated systems combining climate intelligence, infrastructure, ecosystems, spatial planning and citizen engagement.

From Valencia to Bologna: heat resilience, green infrastructure and innovation

Following the Valencian programme, delegates travelled to the Metropolitan City of Bologna, the second host of the Advanced Cooperation Mission.

In Imola, participants explored measures addressing the urban heat-island effect and sponge-city approaches, including interventions at the Historical Innovation Park Osservanza. Delegates conducted a citizens’ audit focused on the development of green spaces to reduce the heat-island effect and also visited the newly constructed start-up innovation centre at Osservanza Park.

The programme then continued in Bologna with visits to the Fondazione Golinelli and the Serre dei Giardini Margherita, connecting climate adaptation with innovation, education and new forms of sustainable urban space. Participants also visited the BiRex Big Data Innovation and Research Centre, where they learned about Industry 4.0 applications and supercomputing, and met experts from the ALMACUBE innovation centre, which specialises in research valorisation.

The final day turned to the increasing role of data, artificial intelligence and high-performance computing in climate adaptation. At Bologna’s Metropolitan Office, they met with the management staff of DAMA Technopole, one of Europe’s leading ecosystems for supercomputing, Big Data and AI, including applications in meteorology, climatology, earth sciences and urban analysis. Presentations from the Emilia-Romagna Region, CINECA, the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC), the Municipality of Bologna and other partners examined how large-scale computing capacity and environmental data can support cities in understanding climate risks, testing scenarios and designing more targeted interventions. The programme also covered urban green strategies and nature-based solutions such as the Villa Salus project.

Moving from exchange towards joint pilot actions

The Valencia–Bologna mission formed part of the implementation of the CoP 14 Urban Cooperation Action Plan (UCAP). Beyond showcasing individual projects, its purpose was to strengthen understanding of integrated climate-adaptation governance and infrastructure planning, build long-term professional relationships between participating cities and regions, and identify areas for further cooperation and pilot actions.

The visit demonstrated the value of combining very different experiences: Mediterranean regions dealing with increasingly intense heat and flash floods; cities developing advanced climate-data and digital-twin systems; communities drawing on experience of major natural disasters; and local authorities experimenting with climate shelters, wetlands, sponge-city infrastructure and resilient public spaces.

These exchanges are now providing the basis for partners to adapt successful approaches to their own local conditions and jointly develop practical climate-resilience solutions under the IURC programme.

Disclaimer: This news has been elaborated with AI support.