Promises and pitfalls of climate adaptation tools across the Mediterranean

Abstract Although tools for climate change adaptation have proliferated, there is relatively little evidence about who they are intended to serve and how well they are suited to respond to decision contexts. We synthesized an inventory of 122 tools and found that around 73% of these are relevant to adaptation in the Mediterranean. We then examined who they are designed for, what they support, and how well they are suited to respond to decision contexts. We argue that access is not the main challenge, but alignment is. The results show that tools operate in isolation, often bound to administrative rather than physical boundaries, and provide limited guidance for choosing appropriate applications. Multilingual support and pathways to integrate local data are uneven. We outline actionable directions to improve this developing ecosystem, including linking tools to each other and to planning processes, making assumptions explicit, and involving anticipated users in the design process. These steps can turn a large and growing supply of tools into a more coherent, context-aware, and usable resource for adaptation and planning across the Mediterranean.

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Publication Details

Journal
Communications Earth & Environment
Published
2026-07-18
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03795-3
Primary Topic
Species Distribution and Climate Change
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Promises and pitfalls of climate adaptation tools across the Mediterranean

Kenan Dalkılıç, Joan Ballester, George Zittis, Robert Stojanov et al.
Communications Earth & Environment
Species Distribution and Climate Change
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Promises and pitfalls of climate adaptation tools across the Mediterranean

Kenan Dalkılıç, Joan Ballester, George Zittis, Robert Stojanov, Filomena Pietrapertosa, C. Michael Barton, Petar Vranić, Liliana Velea, Emine Keleş Özgenç, Elisa Savelli, Atila Bezdan, Aslı Pelin Gürgün, Silvia Kohnová, Marianela Fader, Elias Giannakis, Assaf Hochman, Zahide Erdoğan, Zorica Popović, Niki Paisi, Nicolás Pardo García, Sorin Anghel, Aristeidis Koutroulis, Christian Pagé, Sandra Ricart, Angela Pilogallo, Irida Lazić, Manolis Grillakis, Elanur Adar, Meryem Tanarhte, Ziya İNCE, József Kádár, Thora Tenbrink, Maciej Tankiewicz, Peter Kumer, Alexander Fekete, Bijan Khazai, Athanasios Tsilimigkras, Katie Johnson, Muharrem Hilmi Erkoç, Monica Salvia, Ilias Pechlivanidis, Fatma Handan Giray, M. Yunus Pamukoğlu, Simon N. Gosling, Zahra Kalantari, Jovana Bezdan, Emel Zeray Öztürk, Milica Tošić, Samira Khodayar, Kalliopi-Mikaela Papa, Amir Rezvani, SAIOA ZORITA, Riccardo Biella, Patricia Coll-Hidalgo, Dritan Rustja, Rovshan Karimov, Carolina Cantone
article en

Abstract

Abstract Although tools for climate change adaptation have proliferated, there is relatively little evidence about who they are intended to serve and how well they are suited to respond to decision contexts. We synthesized an inventory of 122 tools and found that around 73% of these are relevant to adaptation in the Mediterranean. We then examined who they are designed for, what they support, and how well they are suited to respond to decision contexts. We argue that access is not the main challenge, but alignment is. The results show that tools operate in isolation, often bound to administrative rather than physical boundaries, and provide limited guidance for choosing appropriate applications. Multilingual support and pathways to integrate local data are uneven. We outline actionable directions to improve this developing ecosystem, including linking tools to each other and to planning processes, making assumptions explicit, and involving anticipated users in the design process. These steps can turn a large and growing supply of tools into a more coherent, context-aware, and usable resource for adaptation and planning across the Mediterranean.

Communications Earth & Environment
TH Köln - University of Applied Sciences (DE), Agricultural University of Athens (GR), Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava (SK), Uppsala University (SE), Trakya University (TR), Tekirdağ Namık Kemal University (TR), Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SE), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), Mercy Corps (US), AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH (AT), Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (RS), Artvin Coruh University (TR), University of Nottingham (GB), Cyprus Institute (CY), Bangor University (GB), University of Novi Sad (RS), Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi (TR), Hebrew University of Jerusalem (IL), Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University (TR), University of Maribor (SI), University of Belgrade (RS), Yıldız Technical University (TR), Euskadiko Parke Teknologikoa (ES), Portuguese Sea and Atmosphere Institute (PT), Mediterranean Center for Environmental Studies (ES), Centre Européen de Recherche et de Formation Avancée en Calcul Scientifique (FR), Administraţia Naţională de Meteorologie (RO), CMCC Foundation - Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (IT), Ministry of Science and Education Republic of Azerbaijan (AZ), CNR-IMIOT – Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Istituto di Metodologie Integrate per l’Osservazione della Terra (IT), GeoEcoMar (RO), Konya Technical University (TR), Suleyman Demirel University (KZ), Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ES), Institute of Physics Belgrade (RS), University of Shkodra "Luigj Gurakuqi" (AL), Centre of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science (SE), Université Hassan II Mohammedia (MA), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (FR), Eskişehir Osmangazi University (TR), Arizona State University (US), Technical University of Crete (GR), Mendel University in Brno (CZ), Hacettepe University (TR), Arava Institute for Environmental Studies (IL), Gdańsk Medical University (PL), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE), KTH Royal Institute of Technology (SE), Politecnico di Milano (IT), University of Hassan II Casablanca (MA)
European Cooperation in Science and Technology
Climate action
Openalex Percentile: Top 9%
Species Distribution and Climate Change
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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