Central European Toolbox for Mitigating Combined Consequences of Drought, Heatwaves, and Fire Weather through Regionally Tuned Forecasting (Clim4Cast)

The frequency, duration, and severity of drought, heatwaves, and fire weather events in the Central European (CE) region are expected to increase as a result of ongoing climate change. Water scarcity and drought represent challenges that are currently being incorporated in most legal frameworks of the CE countries. However, heatwaves and fire weather are not properly addressed in legislation documents. A lack of existing tools to monitor, predict, and spread awareness of these extremes resulted in general unpreparedness to these events on regional, national, and cross-border levels. The project will address this issue by developing a CE multi-temporal forecasting toolbox that will be integrated into existing national drought monitoring efforts. The project will also evaluate the impacts of extreme events and estimate the effect of climate change on their occurrence. These results will serve to develop a strategy that aims to increase climate change awareness related to these three frequently underreported extreme events. The project is unique by developing and implementing of forecasting tool and sharing partner knowledge of extreme weather and climate events, diverse strategies of communication, and networks of stakeholders and potential users of the new tool. The output of the research will serve as an early warning system that can be utilized by diverse stakeholders and can be implemented into respective national legislative frameworks.