Regenerating ECOsystems with Nature-Based solutions for hydro-meteorological risk rEduCTion (RECONECT) is a five year project which combines 35 international leading partners. The main goal in RECONECT is to contribute to European and international reference frameworks on Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) by demonstrating, referencing and upscaling large-scale NBS and by stimulating a new culture for 'land use planning' that links the reduction of hydro-meteorological risks (floods, storm surges, landslides and droughts) with local and regional development objectives in a sustainable way.
RECONECT adopts the holistic ecosystem-based concept. It is based on the premise that our ability to adapt to extreme hydro-meteorological events in a sustainable way depends on the co-evolutionary nonlinear interaction between the ever changing social, economic and cultural requirements and technical developments on one side, and natural processes on the other.
In order to contribute effectively to the development of reference frameworks on NBS and to generate higher impacts across Europe and internationally, RECONECT draws upon a network of demonstration sites (Demonstrators A and B) and collaboration sites (Collaborators). The idea is that Demonstrators serve as ‘living laboratories’ of NBS for monitoring and evaluation in relation to hydro-meteorological risk reduction covering different climatic and local contexts. The knowledge and experiences generated through the demonstrated NBS will form a basis for European and International Collaborators to learn and apply some of these novel concepts in their own cases. Furthermore, RECONECT aims to produce the necessary frameworks and tools that can support more effective planning, financing, modelling, monitoring, evaluation, design, operation and maintenance of NBS projects.
The methodological framework of RECONECT follows a road map containing three groups of interrelated components (i.e. work packages, deliverables and impacts), where the first two groups are designed to ensure that the project achieves its desired immediate and long-term impacts (i.e. third group). In order to achieve the desired impacts the project activities have been structured over seven Work Packages (WPs), each addressing different aspects of the NBS upscaling strategy; from providing the necessary scientific, policy and practical base for the NBS implementation and transfer (WP1) via the ground work in demonstration sites (WP2), followed by the monitoring and evaluation of demonstrated NBS measures (WP3) overcoming barriers, upscaling and synergies with Collaborators (WP4), consolidation of evidence base, exploitation and standardization (WP5), to communication and dissemination (WP6) and project management and coordination (WP7), all of them delivering a particular set of deliverables.
In addition to the activities on co-creation, demonstration, and upscaling of NBS, RECONECT will also develop educational products and organize public events to share the gained knowledge and disseminate project results.
