Ongoing research projects at CNDS

Taking Sweden as a case-in-point, this project aims to address the following questions, of key relevance for ensuring a socially just adaptation to future temperatures: (1) which groups are most vulnerable to non-optimal and extreme temperatures? (2) what is the interplay between environmental drivers, societal processes, adaptation strategies and the resulting health impacts? and (3) how can adaptation strategies mitigate the health impacts of plausible future temperatures?

Description of the project

Aim 1: Past climate variability and vulnerability. To study the acclimatization process to different levels of warming across space and vulnerability to non-optimal and extreme temperatures in Sweden.
Aim 2: Past and ongoing adaptation. To study the interplay between adaptation to non-optimal and extreme temperatures and societal processes leveraging the comparison between Sweden and Spain, a North and a South European country.
Aim 3: Future scenarios of adaptation to temperatures. To develop scenarios of socio-sanitary impacts from plausible future temperatures in Sweden, accounting for societal and adaptation processes.​

• Duration of the project: 2023-2026
• Funding: 12 Million SEK (FORMAS)
• People involved: Elena Raffetti (UU), Giuliano Di Baldassarre (UU), Gabriele Messori (UU), Ilias Pechlivanidis (SMHI), Jette Möller (KI), Joan Ballester (Barcelona Institute for Global Health).

This project, led by researchers from Lund University in collaboration with Stockholm University, focuses on climate-related risks to water supply in southern Sweden and aims to: (i) Identify areas exposed to increased risk of climate impacts on water resources and water supply, ii) Develop new techniques for detailed monitoring of groundwater and surface water, and iii) developing a decision support system for artificial groundwater recharge to inform current and future water supply management.

• Duration of the project: 2023-2026
• Funding: 16 Million SEK (FORMAS)
• People involved: Johanna Mård (UU), Fernando Jaramillo (SU), Hossein Hashemi (LU).

Worldwide, water resources management is increasingly challenged by water scarcity and climate change, which can trigger and aggravate other ecological (e.g. pests) and socioeconomic threats (e.g. commodity price fluctuations) via feedback loops and cascading impacts across systems. In this context, planning for the future is rife with uncertainties for which conventional decision-making methods and policies are inadequate. The objective of TRANSCEND is to identify and catalyze the adoption of Transformational Adaptation Policies (TAP) to water scarcity, including innovative allocation systems and economic instruments, that are robust and adaptable to uncertainty and change, while simultaneously achieving equitable and sustainable economic growth and welfare.

To this end, TRANSCEND will develop a groundbreaking ecosystem of innovation that combines three key pillars: (i) a knowledge network for stakeholder engagement and knowledge sharing, (ii) an actionable modeling suite that integrates interdisciplinary socio-ecological science and ensemble forecasting to guide TAP design, and (iii) an accounting and monitoring toolbox that supports implementation and enforcement of TAP in practice.

This project is coordinated by the University of Salamanca (Spain) and involves 15 partner organizations from 13 different countries. Giuliano Di Baldassarre will be leading WP3. Along with his research team at UU, he will develop socio-hydrological models and methods for assessing water policies in several cases studies around the world.

• Duration of the project: 2023-2026
• Funding: 5.3 million EUR (602,000 EUR to the Department of Earth Sciences at Uppsala university).
• People involved: Giuliano Di Baldassarre (UU) and Omar Cenobio (UU).

More information in the EU website

Worldwide, water resources management is increasingly challenged by water scarcity and climate change, which can trigger and aggravate other ecological (e.g. pests) and socioeconomic threats (e.g. commodity price fluctuations) via feedback loops and cascading impacts across systems. In this context, planning for the future is rife with uncertainties for which conventional decision-making methods and policies are inadequate. The objective of TRANSCEND is to identify and catalyze the adoption of Transformational Adaptation Policies (TAP) to water scarcity, including innovative allocation systems and economic instruments, that are robust and adaptable to uncertainty and change, while simultaneously achieving equitable and sustainable economic growth and welfare.

To this end, TRANSCEND will develop a groundbreaking ecosystem of innovation that combines three key pillars: (i) a knowledge network for stakeholder engagement and knowledge sharing, (ii) an actionable modeling suite that integrates interdisciplinary socio-ecological science and ensemble forecasting to guide TAP design, and (iii) an accounting and monitoring toolbox that supports implementation and enforcement of TAP in practice.

This project is coordinated by the University of Salamanca (Spain) and involves 15 partner organizations from 13 different countries. Giuliano Di Baldassarre will be leading WP3. Along with his research team at UU, he will develop socio-hydrological models and methods for assessing water policies in several cases studies around the world.

• Duration of the project: 2023-2026
• Funding: 5.3 million EUR (602,000 EUR to the Department of Earth Sciences at Uppsala university).
• People involved: Giuliano Di Baldassarre (UU) and Omar Cenobio (UU).

More information in the EU website

How are we affected by traumatic experiences and sudden grief? Why do some people go through life with an ability to recover from such experiences while others do not?

This project aims to unravel the mystery of what makes us resilient to traumatic experiences and sudden grief. If we can understand how we are affected by traumatic events and sudden grief, and what makes us resilient to such events, then we can also understand what possible measures can lead to increased welfare after trauma and grief. If we can develop such measures as society, it can be of great benefit. This project gives us the prospects to do just that.

The project works with anonymized data from existing registers. The main data source is data on the approximately 16,030 Swedish survivors of the tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia in 2004, as well as data on the relatives of those who perished (approximately 530 Swedes). We link this data to administrative data from the National Board of Health and Welfare and the population register at Statistics Sweden, and combine it with a survey. The combination of data sources, and a real large-scale crisis as an event, allows us to study the short- and long-term effects of the tsunami on a wide range of social, health, economic and political outcomes. This unique opportunity opens up for identifying what makes us resilient.

The aim is to understand how the surviving Swedes have fared as a group, and why some have fared better than others. We also want to understand how the relatives of those who perished have fared as a group, as these individuals were exposed to sudden grief.

The project provides research of high scientific quality and has good possibilities to be of use in the design of measures that lead to increased welfare after trauma and grief.

In summary, the knowledge from this project can contribute to increased resilience to traumatic events that affect the individual, but also to sudden large-scale crises that affect us as a society. By understanding what makes us resilient to traumatic events, we simply have the opportunity to better prepare for future crises. In the future, this knowledge may contribute to increased preparedness and security for the civilian population by offering relevant measures when the crisis comes. In this way, the project intends to contribute with important knowledge for a multifaceted crisis preparedness and a strengthened civil defense.

• Duration of the project: 2022 - 2026
• Funding: 5 Million SEK (The Swedish Research Council)
• People involved: Lina M. Eriksson (PI, UU), post doctor Kalle Ekholm (UU), collaborating researcher Kåre Vernby (UU-SU).