Governance Sector Survey

ASPECT researchers launch a survey to explore how climate information is understood, used, and can be improved for governance and adaptation planning.
Climate change is already affecting European regions through more frequent and intense extreme events, putting pressure on infrastructure, water resources, and territorial planning systems. While advanced climate data and models are increasingly available, these are not always effectively integrated into policy and decision-making processes, especially across different governance levels and institutional capacities.
The European project ASPECT aims to bridge this gap by developing science-based climate information, risk assessments, and decision-support approaches that support regional and local authorities in designing effective adaptation strategies. ASPECT focuses on translating advanced climate predictions—from seasonal to decadal time scales—into formats that are meaningful, usable, and actionable for governance users.
In this context, ASPECT researchers, together with the Governance Super Users ARPAE (Emilia-Romagna), are testing an early-stage prototype survey designed to better understand how climate information is currently used in climate-risk assessment and adaptation planning. The survey explores users’ needs, technical capacities, institutional barriers, and preferred delivery formats for climate information, including data products, visualisations, and interpretative guidance.
The survey aims to understand if the Governance prototype could be replicated, scaled, and adapted across regions with very different governance structures and levels of technical capacity. Although the survey is currently available in English, it will be translated into additional languages in January (Italian, Spanish, Serbian, Portuguese, German, Greek, and French) to ensure broad accessibility and inclusiveness.
Your responses will in turn help improve the design of future governance-oriented climate services, clarify why climate information does not always translate into policy action, and support the development of tools that work for both highly technical authorities and resource-constrained local administrations.