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HYDRALAB+

Hydralab Plus - Adapting to climate change
 HYDRALAB+ project logo
Classification: 
international research
Programme: 
Horizon 2020
Call: 
European Research Infrastructures
Main ERC field: 
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Unict role: 
Partner
Duration (months): 
48
Start date: 
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
End date: 
Saturday, August 31, 2019
Total cost: 
€ 9.979.376,10
Unict cost: 
€ 198.724,00
Coordinator: 
STICHTING Deltares (Netherlands)
Principal investigator in Unict: 
Enrico Foti
University department involved: 
Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture
Participants: 

Deltares - Delft, The Netherlands; Aalto - Aalto Univeristy, Aalto, Finland; Cedex - Centro de Estudios y Experimentación de Obras Públicas, Madrid, Spain; CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Gernoble, France; DHI - Hørsholm, Denmark; GeoEcomar - The National Institute for Research and Development of Marine Geology and Geoecology, Bucarest, Romania; HR Wallingford - Wallingford, UK; HSVA - Hamburgische Schiffbau Versuchsanstalt, Hamburg, Germany; IAHR - International Association for Hydro-Environement Engineering and Research, Madrid, Spain; IBWPAN - Instytut Budownictwa Wodnego Polskiej Akademii Nauk, Gdansk, Poland; IFREMER - Institut français de recherche pour l'exploitation de la mer, Brest, France; Loughborough University - Loughborough, UK; LNEC - Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil, Lisbon, Portugal; Leibniz University Hannover (FZK) - Hannover, Germany; NERC-NOC - National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK; NTNU - Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, Trondheim, Norway; Samui - Banbury, UK; UABDN - university of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK; UCAN - University of Cantabria, Santander, Spain; University of Hull - Hull, UK; UPC - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, BarcelonaTech, Barcelona, Spain; University of Porto, Porto,Portugal; University Twente, Twente, The Netherlands

Associated partners: Aker Arctic - Helsinki, Finland; Aristotle University of Thessaloniki -Thessaloniki, Greece; Artelia - Grenoble, France; EPFL - École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Flanders HR - Flanders Hydraulics Research, Antwerp, Belgium; University of Coimbra - Coimbra, Portugal; Marintek - Trondheim, Norway; Plymouth - Plymouth University, Plymouth, UK; Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy

Abstract

HYDRALAB is an advanced network of environmental hydraulic institutes in Europe, which has been effective in providing access to a suite of major and unique environmental hydraulic facilities from across the whole European scientific community. A continuation project will prepare environmental hydraulic modelling for the upcoming urgent technical challenges associated with adaptations for climate change. A multi-disciplinary approach is essential to meet these challenges. We denote the project HYDRALAB+, in recognition of the added value that will follow from our network changing to enhance the collaboration between specialists and engaging with a new range of stakeholders. The issues associated with climate change impacts on rivers and coasts are significant enough to ask the scientific community to which we open up our facilities to focus their research efforts on adaptations for climate change. We plan to issue themed calls for proposals for access to the facilities, with scientific merit as the main selection criterion, but with preference to the proposals that also address issues of adaptation to climate change impact. In HYDRALAB+, with the prospect of climate change, we will build networking activities that will also involve the wider hydraulic community in the process of generating the deliverables of the project. The first Workshop in the project will be devoted to working together with the larger European hydraulics community not directly involved in HYDRALAB. Increased emphasis will be placed by HYDRALAB+ on engagement with industry – a theme that will be delivered initially through the vehicle of a focussed Workshop between HYDRALAB researchers and industry. We will work together with industry to have HYDRALAB+ become part of the innovation cycle by bringing development to market – this is particularly relevant for the instruments we develop - to involve industry in our range of project deliverables