CROSSEU: Advancing Climate Resilience Insights with a Decision Support System
The CROSSEU project is an initiative focused on assessing climate risks and is making significant progress developing innovative decision-support tools. As part of this interdisciplinary collaboration, WEMC is working closely with the UKRI DAFNI team to enhance the usability of the project’s results.
WEMC is excited to share the latest achievements from Work Package 3, which is dedicated to producing an interface for stakeholders to access and analyse CROSSEU results.
Key Milestone: Beta-Version Decision Support System
In this work package, we have successfully reached an important milestone with the development of a prototype of the CROSSEU Decision Support System (DSS). This features front-end visualisation using the Teal tool, enabling users to explore CROSSEU results in an accessible and intuitive way. This achievement represents a major step toward providing actionable insights for policymakers and stakeholders across Europe.
New Results: Heat-Related Mortality from CROSSEU Case Study 1
The beta-DSS includes regional-level analysis for heat-attributable mortality in the Czech Republic with results developed by partners at the Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague. This includes insights across:
- Sub-country Regions
- Mortality indicators
- Population groups
- Historical and future climate emissions pathways
The CROSSEU Case Study 1 examines heatwave impacts on health, identifying Prague as a climate change hotspot. Previous studies show that temperatures in Europe are rising faster than the global average, increasing the frequency and intensity of heatwaves. These events have gendered and age-related impacts, for example amplifying health risks for the elderly, and strain healthcare systems due to urban heat islands and aging populations. The study uses historical temperature-mortality data and projects future impacts using EURO-CORDEX climate scenarios and demographic trends. It aims to identify vulnerable groups, assess adaptive capacity, and compare socio-economic and climate factors that influence heat-related mortality.
The visualisations in the beta-DSS — for example, maps and time-series graphs showing historical and projected heat-related mortality — highlight projected increases under higher emissions scenarios, providing information for climate mitigation and adaptation strategies.
Why the DSS will be a key result from CROSSEU
By integrating results from the case studies – including future projections in climate indicators and socio-economic data – the DSS enables evidence-based planning to help protect lives and reduce vulnerability. Crucially, these tools are designed to support informed policy decisions, ensuring that adaptation strategies are practical, targeted, and effective.
Next steps
We plan to expand coverage to additional regions and sectors with all eight CROSSEU case studies, enhance user interactivity and scenario comparisons, and we are now preparing for stakeholder testing and feedback.
Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to refine the DSS and deliver tools that empower climate-resilient decision-making.
