The Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East are generally considered a climate change hot spot. The region is expected to face major challenges in energy demand and supply, as well as a decreasing availability of fresh water in the course of the 21st century, which are likely to cause adverse economical and societal consequences.

To cope with climate change impacts adequately, efficient and economically and societally feasible adaptation strategies for the energy and water sectors are essential. In order to derive such strategies, sufficient and reliable information on the possible course of regional climate development and a comprehensive assessment of climate change impacts are urgently needed. To that end, we need to assess and analyze currently available data on climate conditions as well as on the energy and water sectors in the Eastern Mediterranean.

However, having sufficient information on available data on the one hand and the exchange of data between regional and national institutions on the other, are still a challenge. This causes significant gaps in our understanding of relevant issues. In addition, the scarcity of high-performance computer resources necessary for data storage, analysis, distribution, and modelling is a prevalent problem in the region.

The EU-DARECLIMED project, addressing the above considerations, aims to identify, rescue, collect and disseminate regional datasets or information about such datasets related to climate, the water and the energy sectors: Ultimately, the project aims at specifying best practices as well as concrete measures aimed at building-up a data repository and at sharing of regional data, climate model methodologies and climate-model-simulation results.

Project information

Title: DATA REPOSITORIES AND COMPUTATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL AND CLIMATE STUDIES IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN
Call (part) Identifier: EU FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES-2010-1
Funding Scheme: Coordination and Support Actions
Funding  Period:  February 2011 - July 2013
Project number: 262263
Coordinator: The Cyprus Institute/EEWRC