CREST annual consortium meeting
CREST convened its annual consortium meeting in Bordeaux, France, from October 19th to 20th, 2023, focusing on Digital Innovation and Climate Resilience. The meeting aimed to facilitate partner collaboration by sharing progress, addressing challenges, exploring potential solutions, and emphasizing the utilization of digital twin technology for visualizing climate threats.
Key discussions during the consortium meeting encompassed data collection for Key Performance Indicators, the creation of sustainability and resilience frameworks, participatory policy for co-creation approaches through lay citizen surveys and focus group discussions, the workshop for the implementation and utilization of Digital Twin technology, and effective project communication and management. Ongoing engagement with partners providing technological and methodical tools, research, and knowledge support will guide the project partners and stakeholders throughout the implementation of the project.
In a broader context, the Digital Twin concept, essential for efficient decision-making and resource utilization, involves creating a virtual model mirroring a physical object. CREST tailors Digital Twins specifically to urban infrastructures constructing virtual versions using real city data related to climate change threats.
Partners participating: ACCENT SUD, AugmentCity, BSE – Bordeaux University and CNRS, INOVA+, ETTIS – INRAe, IRMiR, Møre and Romsdal County Council.
Read the news published in Norwegian by Møre and Romsdal County here.
The Article in English
Kristiansund actively participates in the project, along with Møre and Romsdal County, and the cities of Kołobrzeg in Poland and Bordeaux in France.
Kristiansund Highlighted as a Role Model
The main goal of the workshop was to evaluate the results of a survey in which the residents of the participating cities took part in October. In Kristiansund, residents had the opportunity to share their views on climate change that will affect themselves and the municipality in the future. The questions revolved around how Kristiansund is handling current challenges and what expectations residents have for the municipality in the future. Kristiansund places great emphasis on political participation, which has so far involved a digital survey called “How Resilient Is Your Municipality to Climate Change?” Here, residents could share their opinions on climate change today, identify future risks, and provide suggestions for improvements and actions. Kristiansund Municipality’s efforts were highlighted as a role model at the workshop. There has been significant engagement from residents, and climate adaptation is a topic that concerns many. CREST is an example of how residents can be involved in shaping the future of living in Kristiansund, says Ingrid Gjelsvik from Møre and Romsdal County. The next step will be in November when focus groups with experts from various fields will discuss perceived threats and the most vulnerable areas and structures in the city.
Training in the Use of Digital Twins
The responses from the survey and the focus groups will be used in the development of a digital twin – a 4D model of Kristiansund that will show the effects of climate change in various scenarios. Digital twins enable comprehensive visualizations of various data from reality and are increasingly used as a tool to ensure effective decision-making and resource allocation. During the workshop in Bordeaux, all participants had the opportunity to learn how to use this tool. The technology is developed by AugmentCity in Ålesund, which has licensed it for use in the partner cities.
CREST is an EU-funded project aimed at developing new digital tools to assist coastal cities in climate adaptation. CREST belongs to the EU program JPI Urban Europe and has seven project partners from Norway, Poland, and France. The project period extends from April 2022 to April 2025, with a total budget of 1,150,079 euros. Møre and Romsdal County’s budget is 99,000 euros. Cities around the world are responsible for approximately 75% of current global greenhouse gas emissions, primarily from the transportation and construction sectors. At the same time, cities face significant challenges related to climate change. Coastal cities are particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels and extreme weather events such as floods and storms, which can have negative consequences for everything from infrastructure and housing to the livelihoods of residents and public health (UN Environment Programme, 2020).