Aligning Governance, Investment, Land Use, and Climate Resilience in Energy Transition Regions: Evidence from the Resilience–Investment–Land Nexus

Energy Transition Regions (ETRs) face the dual challenge of phasing out carbon-intensive activities while ensuring economic viability, social stability, and climate resilience. This study operationalises the Resilience–Investment–Land Nexus (RILN) to examine how climate vulnerability, investment decision-making, land-use planning, and governance capacity interact to shape transition outcomes. An expert survey conducted in three European ETRs, Western Macedonia (Greece), Silesia (Poland), and Stara Zagora (Bulgaria), assesses perceptions of optimal investment and land-use strategies (OILUS) alongside the political and local governance framework (PLGF) enabling their implementation. A radar-based multi-criteria diagnostic analysis reveals a consistent implementation gap: strong strategic alignment on climate-resilient planning coexists with weaker institutional capacity, coordination, financial resources, and data availability. Cross-country differences indicate that these constraints are shaped by context-specific governance structures rather than uniform technical barriers. Formal heterogeneity analysis using nonparametric tests and ordinal regression models reveals limited divergence in strategic priorities but substantial variation in governance capacity perceptions across countries. The findings highlight governance readiness as a critical determinant of whether climate-resilient investment strategies can be translated into actionable policies. By providing an empirically grounded operationalisation of the RILN framework, the study offers a diagnostic approach for identifying institutional bottlenecks and informing more feasible transition pathways in regions undergoing structural energy transformation.