This report provides an evaluation on how the growing knowledge on adaptation in Europe has been captured and how it is presented on the web-based European Climate Adaptation Platform (Climate-ADAPT) and shared across Europe.
The European Commission and the European Environment Agency (EEA) launched the European Climate Adaptation Platform (Climate-ADAPT) (http://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu) in 2012. Its aim is to provide a common European knowledge base to support the target audience of governmental organisations and those supporting them in developing and implementing climate change adaptation strategies and actions, complementary to adaptation platforms at other levels of governance.
The need for such a platform was recognised in the 2013 EU strategy on adaptation to climate change or adaptation strategy, which is being evaluated by the European Commission in 2017-2018, as a key element of better informed decision-making that should be developed further.
This report provides an evaluation of the fulfilment of the Climate-ADAPT objectives. The evaluation was carried out by the EEA as a process evaluation with a focus on learning. It focuses on the three objectives of the platform mentioned above. A multi-method approach was used that combined internal assessment and external feedback tools, including a user/provider survey, analysis of web statistics and collection of 'use cases', i.e., examples of the use of Climate-ADAPT.
The lessons learned from the Climate-ADAPT evaluation may also be of use for other thematic platforms maintained by the EEA, such as those on biodiversity and water, and for climate change adaptation platforms at national and transnational levels.