Mistra-SWECIA - Swedish Research Programme on Climate, Impacts and Adaptation

Submitted by Caroline Lumosi | published 28th Mar 2014 | last updated 17th Mar 2020

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5357e5073b0a5farna-ekopark 3 - climate adaptation.

Climate change is a reality and it is important to analyse the effects these changes will have on the environment and on society, as well as investigate how societies will be required to adapt their activities to the altered conditions.

Mistra-SWECIA is a Swedish, multidisciplinary programme that develops research-based knowledge which is used to support decisions about adaptation to climate change. Mistra-SWECIA builds on expertise from several research areas, including climatology, ecosystem science, economics, sociology and political science. The approach is to perform scientifically sound, scenario-based integrated climate, impact and economic analysis and research on the adaptation process. Parallel to, and as one approach to achieving its science goals, the programme engages with stakeholders within and across different sectors and at a range of scales. By collaborating with Mistra-SWECIA, stakeholders are expected to benefit from focused decision-support and an enhanced capacity to translate scientific information into practical knowledge of direct relevance for decision making. By 2015 the programme will have resulted in three main outcomes:

- a new strong and cross-disciplinary Swedish research arena, bringing together physical climate sciences, terrestrial ecosystem and carbon cycle science, economics, and social sciences at the international state-of-the-art level;

- strengthened ability of Sweden to manage climate change by means of proactive adaptation on local, regional (sub-national) and national scales;

- building-blocks of a strategy for long-term science-based and stakeholder-oriented operations of a national climate and adaptation dialogue platform.

Mistra-SWECIA’s research focuses on land use and on the ways in which Swedish forests and forestry are affected by climate change and, more generally, how the effects of climate change are relevant to those involved in forestry, agriculture and nature conservation.

Programme donors and partners

Mistra-SWECIA is funded by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (Mistra). The programme involves SMHI (The Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute), SEI (Stockholm Environment Institute), Lund University and Stockholm University. It began in 2008 and runs until 2015. SMHI is the programme host.