Duration: 01/10/2025 – 30/09/2029
Total Funding: € 7,132,906.25
Overview
The REHUBS project addresses the critical challenge of climate vulnerability in rural areas and small to medium-sized communities, which are often exposed to droughts, floods, heatwaves, wildfires, storms, and biodiversity loss. It was observed that these areas often lack the infrastructure, governance frameworks, and resources needed to respond in an effective and proactive manner, leaving such communities, agriculture, and local economies at risk.
Already in use risk assessment tools and models struggle to capture the essence and impact of climate change at the local level, while efforts made to adapt to these changes are most of the times fragmented and unequal. Rural areas face barriers to knowledge transfer, financing, and inclusive participation, which limits their adaptive capacity and weakens resilience.
REHUBS takes on the challenge of connecting advanced informed climate science and the practical needs of rural communities by developing an integrated framework of nature-based solutions, digital tools, risk assessment models and participatory approaches. This integrated approach will support cost-effective, replicable, and community-driven adaptation strategies that are embedded in local governance structures and tailored to the needs of rural area populations.
Objectives
To Identify climate related challenges and provide a comprehensive climate risk and vulnerability assessment for Rural Areas.
To design and introduce a multi-level approach of adaptation solutions on water, wildfires and agricultural climate challenges, mainstreaming Nature Based Solutions (NBS) and sustainable principles.
To co-create and deliver a set of user-friendly ICT tools to support small local authorities and communities in climate adaptation.
To facilitate community engagement, participatory activities and capacity building through establishing Rural Micro Hubs for inclusiveness, collaboration and stakeholder upskilling.
To Deploy, test and validate REHUBS solutions in key hotspot areas, secure collaboration and reapplication with other regions to scale up impacts and provide close to market business plans.
eBOS Role in the Project
eBOS plays a key role in the REHUBS project, focusing on the development of digital tools which aim to improve climate resilience in rural communities. The key tasks and responsibilities include leading the creation of an integrated Risk Assessment and Adaptation Support Platform (RAAP), which includes the identification and integration of various partner tools, data sources, and components. These includes modules such as an AI chatbot, Climate Regional Projections and Risk Assessment Tool, Advanced Weather Modelling, Framework/List of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) for Rural Resilience, Online Academy, and Wildfire detection and forecasting outputs.
To achieve this eBOS is tasked with defining the system architecture for the RAAP, ensuring that it meets technical specifications such as scalability, security, and performance. The integration of different partner tools and data sources will create a seamless infrastructure for communication and data flow.
eBOS will also ensure that the platform provides a user-friendly interface, facilitating clear data presentation and supporting effective decision-making for small rural local authorities.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
