Establishing a Mountain Living Lab for Climate Services in Slavsko (Ukrainian Carpathians)

Mountain regions whose economies depend on winter tourism are particularly vulnerable to climate variability and change, especially through alterations in snow-cover regimes that directly affect local infrastructure and livelihoods. In the Ukrainian Carpathians, Slavsko is one of the most important winter tourism centres, where increasing climate variability and declining snow reliability pose growing challenges to the sustainable operation of ski resorts and related services. This contribution presents the scientific basis and conceptual design for establishing the Slavsko Mountain Living Lab, aimed at developing an operational climate service to support adaptation of winter tourism in the Carpathian region.

The Living Lab is grounded in a comprehensive long-term analysis of snow-cover dynamics at the Slavsko meteorological station (592 m a.s.l.) for the period 1948/49–2019/20. Based on daily observations, snow-cover duration, periods of stable and unstable snow cover, maximum and mean snow depth, daily accumulation and melt processes, as well as synthetic indicators of winter snowiness and severity are analysed. The results indicate a weak but persistent decrease in the number of snow-cover days (approximately one day per decade) and a gradual decline in maximum and mean snow depth, set against pronounced interannual and multi-decadal variability. A statistically significant decrease in winter severity suggests that thermal changes are progressing faster than reductions in snowfall, leading to shorter periods of stable snow cover and a higher frequency of discontinuous snow conditions. At the same time, episodically very snowy winters continue to occur, underlining the importance of variability and extremes for operational planning.

These findings form the empirical foundation of the Slavsko Mountain Living Lab, which is implemented within the framework of the Erasmus+ project “Supporting Ukraine’s Next Generation of Scholars: a project for Raising University Capacity and Improving Doctoral Student Education” (SUNRISE, 2024–2027; https://sunrise.emu.ee/). The Living Lab is conceived as a co-creation platform that brings together ski resort operators, local authorities, tourism businesses, community organisations, and researchers to collaboratively develop climate-informed decision-support tools for mountain regions.

The Slavsko Mountain Living Lab focuses on integrating long-term climate diagnostics, snow-cover monitoring, and applied climate information into a user-oriented climate service, implemented through an interactive Shiny-based application (R). The application supports the visualisation, exploration, and interpretation of snow and climate indicators, enabling stakeholders to engage directly with climate information in a transparent, accessible, and decision-relevant manner.

Within the SUNRISE framework, the Living Lab also functions as a real-world training and research environment for doctoral students, strengthening their competencies in climate data analysis, climate service co-design, and science–policy–practice communication. In this way, the Slavsko Mountain Living Lab serves both as a pilot framework for climate adaptation in mountain tourism and as a transferable model for other mid-elevation mountain regions seeking to enhance the climate resilience of tourism-dependent local economies under conditions of increasing climatic uncertainty.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported by the SUNRISE project (2024-1-IT02-KA220-HED-000256685), co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.