About

The Environmental Hydraulics Institute of Cantabria “IHCantabria” is a joint research centre founded in 2007 with over twenty years of expertise in the fields of climate change and climate services; marine energies and offshore engineering; environmental management and planning; coastal engineering and management; port engineering and management; water resources and hydraulic engineering; natural and human risks. IHCantabria specializes in basic and applied research, technological transfer, and training, applying theoretical knowledge, field measurements, laboratory testing, and numerical modelling.

With more than 200 experts, IHCantabria has conducted a great number of R&D projects funded by various funding organisms such as the EU, NATO, UNDP, IDB, and World Bank. Some of the flagships European Projects in which IHCantabria is currently involved are CoCliCo (GA-ID: 101003598), NBRACER (GA-ID: 101112836), LIFE GARACHICO (ID: LIFE20 CCA/ES/001641).

Role

FIHAC is actively involved in the development of the digital decision-support platform (WP2), aimed at facilitating the prioritization and implementation of Nature-Based Solutions (NbS) for climate risk management. Within this work package, FIHAC leads the development of a quantitative risk-reduction analysis framework (T2.1), which will assess the effectiveness of NbS. Additionally, FIHAC contributes to the characterization of climate-related hazards (T2.2) and the evaluation of exposure and vulnerability (T2.3). As part of the team, FIHAC also collaborates in the creation of a digital platform to rank and manage NbS for addressing climate threats such as floods, landslides, and wildfires (T2.4). This methodology, developed in partnership with IBM Research GmbH and Telespazio UK Ltd., will form the foundation for the creation of the digital decision-support platform. The system will be implemented in pilot cases involving critical infrastructure across five locations within the Alpine biogeographical region: Lattenbach (Austria), Brasov (Romania), Ljubljana (Slovenia), Zvolen (Slovakia), and Globocica (North Macedonia). FIHAC will also lead the delivery of the methodological framework for risk reduction analysis of infrastructures based on NbS (D2.1). Regarding other contributions, FIHAC participates in activities under WP3, focused on establishing living labs to test NbS, including managing permits and ensuring regulatory compliance (T3.3). FIHAC also contributes to WP5, dedicated to mainstreaming NbS into implementation strategies and policy frameworks for climate-resilient infrastructure, as well as replicating the solutions developed in NATURE-DEMO (T5.1 and T5.2).