The Living Lab Sets the Scene for a Next Generation Climate Service in Italy

The first 6 months of 2022 have been quite challenging for water resources in Italy, progressively facing the worst drought season of the past decades, the Italian living lab has been setup and moved its first steps the Multi Actor Platform of engaged Stakeholders first met in February.

The meeting brought together a heterogeneous set of experts in the field of water resources (from Regional Government and Environmental Agency of Emilia Romagna to land reclamation consortia, to multi utility companies and private companies) to decide together where to work and what next generation service develop within the framework of the I-CISK project.

The challenge LL decided to face is co-designing a water resource forecast service prototype in the upper Secchia River (close to the Castellarano weir) in Emilia Romagna Region, where most of the Stakeholders have tangible interests and derive water for various usages.

In the following months, the established MAP grew further reaching 13 members, and new organizations, both private and public, joined the Lab.

Intense work is ongoing and the knowledge and relevant local data (discharge, meteorological data/forecasts, and constructive feedback on the challenges to face) started flowing, feeding the co-design process for the coming months.

The project team is now actively co-designing the service engaging with each Stakeholder directly and data mining with them to discover the local knowledge available for service development.

A lot of work is ongoing and the knowledge and many relevant local data (discharge record, meteorological data, forecast and above all constructive feedback on the challenges we are going to face) started flowing feeding the work for the months to come.