GoApply: Multidemensional governance of adaptation to climate change in policy making and practice in the Alpine space

Governance of adaptation to climate change is defined as the structures, processes and interdependencies that determine how actors (from public administration, politics, science, business and civil society) make decisions, share power, exercise responsibility, and ensure accountability regarding adaptation to climate change. Governance is about the horizontal interplay of sectors and the vertical interplay of policy levels. It requires mandatory (formal) and voluntary (informal) cooperation between actors, across sectors and across policy levels and is regionally specific and context-sensitive.

Mapping governance of adaptation to climate change means identifying and visualizing the most relevant climate change adaptation activities. Methodologically, the mapping is based on expert assessments on the most relevant adaptation policies, measures, actors, knowledge resources, and interactions. We distinguish different types of interactions to represent the most important functions of governance: information, decision-making, implementation, funding, monitoring and evaluation.

Mapping governance of adaptation to climate change in the Alpine Space and visualizing those governance patterns and dynamics is essential in order to learn from the diversity of governance approaches taken in different countries and regions, to share strengths and weaknesses and to highlight options and innovations for enhancing vertical coordination and mainstreaming.

The WSL led the project «GoApply: Multidimensional governance of climate change adaptation in policy making and practice» from November 2016 to April 2019 on behalf of the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN). It took place as part of the «Interreg Alpine Space Programme/Call 2». The FOEN also conducted a governance case study for Switzerland in 2017.