CSA Barcelona

Barcelona Metropolitan Area

Barcelona Province, Catalonia, Spain

Our pilot site in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area faces significant climate change challenges, including wildfires, droughts, and heat waves. In the coming decades, experts predict more frequent and intense droughts and heat waves. These conditions, combined with rural abandonment and expanding wildland-urban interfaces (areas where urban development meets natural lands), heighten the risk of wildfires. This creates a high-risk scenario, endangering both communities and ecosystems. Effective adaptation and mitigation strategies are critical to safeguard lives and natural habitats against these escalating climate threats.

Our solutions prioritize sustainable forest management to address wildfire risks, conserve water, and improve community readiness for climate-related threats. By focusing on reducing vegetation in key wildfire-prone areas, we aim to limit the amount of fuel available for potential fires, thus lowering their intensity and spread. This can be achieved through a combination of nature-based approaches, including mechanical thinning, prescribed burns, and targeted grazing.

Mechanical treatments help clear dense vegetation, prescribed burns mimic natural fire cycles to maintain healthy ecosystems, and grazing can reduce underbrush and grass buildup in a low-impact way. Together, these methods not only reduce fire risk but also lessen water demands, as forests with balanced vegetation are more resilient to drought. Additionally, we’ll work to enhance citizen preparedness, equipping communities with the knowledge and tools to stay safe. These efforts collectively build a safer, more resilient environment in the face of climate change.

The CSA is led by two institutions:

MITIGA: Founded in 2018 as a spin-off from the Spanish National Supercomputing Center and headquartered in Barcelona, Mitiga combines science and technology to improve prevention, resilience and adaptation capacity to climate-related hazards using physics-based models, AI and high-performance computing. Mitiga provide climate risk intelligence to their customers, allowing them to analyse, report and act on their business exposure to climate risk through the self-serve platform EarthScan™ and Mitiga’s own risk models. Mitiga’s mission is to make the world a more resilient place under a changing climate by bridging the gap between boundary-pushing science and forward-looking businesses with a team of dedicated experts.

Pau Costa Foundation: The Pau Costa Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing wildfire management, research, and education worldwide. Established in 2011, the foundation promotes knowledge-sharing among professionals, scientists, and communities to improve wildfire prevention, preparedness, and response. Its initiatives focus on sustainable land management, wildfire ecology, and raising public awareness of wildfire risks and solutions. The foundation organizes training, workshops, and projects to foster innovation in firefighting techniques and community resilience. With a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach, the Pau Costa Foundation strives to create safer, more sustainable ecosystems and societies in the face of escalating wildfire threats.

We selected the Barcelona Metropolitan Area as our pilot site due to its unique combination of challenges and opportunities. This region faces a high wildfire risk, not only threatening ecosystems but also putting nearby communities at risk. Urban pressure and intense climate stress further strain the area, as do the high numbers of tourists and visitors who frequent its natural spaces. Additionally, a variety of stakeholders—including local authorities, environmental organizations, and community groups—are actively working here, making it an ideal location for collaborative efforts. These factors create a rich context for developing and testing climate resilience and wildfire management strategies.

Requirements and, therefore, outcomes, will be identified together with stakeholders. However, we provide a tentative list:

  • Develop models that assess future risk for extreme heat, droughts and wildfire, under different climate scenarios. We aim to provide probabilistic estimates of extreme events through a selected list of indicators to quantify drought severity, heatwave intensity and fire danger.
  • Create user-friendly Risk Assessment Tools for stakeholders to evaluate their heat, drought and wildfire risk.
  • Enable decision-makers to prioritize mitigation and adaptation measures.

Wide list of stakeholders with different profiles:

  • Practitioners
  • Public administration
  • Land managers and owners
  • Local communities
  • Private companies from different sectors (tourism, energy…)
  • Local NGOs
  • Researchers
  • Others
  • First Living Lab workshop, 3rd December, Barcelona