Beyond advances in climate science and modelling, there is increasing recognition that the values and benefits of climate services - economic, social, and environmental - are critical factors in promoting their use and justifying continued investment. In this context, co-creation and co-production processes are increasingly viewed as key mechanisms for enhancing the relevance, legitimacy, and uptake of climate services by aligning climate information with decision-making needs, institutional settings, and societal priorities.
This session invites contributions that critically examine the values and benefits generated by climate services and climate information, together with the co-creation and co- production processes through which such value is shaped, realised, and sustained. The session also welcomes contributions that analyse the climate services market, barriers to uptake, and the factors influencing demand and use across sectors and regions. Overall, the session aims to foster interdisciplinary dialogue on how climate services create value for decision making, policy development, and societal resilience, and on how this value can be assessed, enhanced, and maintained across different contexts.
We welcome contributions addressing, but not limited to:
• Economic, social, and environmental valuation and evaluation of climate services and climate information
• Methods and frameworks for assessing benefits, impacts, and outcomes of climate services
• Co-creation and co-production approaches that strengthen the value and support the uptake of climate services
• Institutional, governance, and power dynamics in co produced climate services
• Climate services markets, demand dynamics, and structural barriers to uptake
• Lessons learned from operational, experimental, and pilot climate services
• Monitoring and evaluation approaches implemented in operational climate services
• Case studies across different sectors such as water, agriculture, energy, transportation, coastal management, disaster risk reduction, and others
Co-creation of climate services is increasingly recognised as important to effective uptake and use. Stages of co-creation include co-exploring climate information needs of users and how decisions are informed by both local and scientific knowledges, and co-designing climate services to meet needs through integrating local knowledges and tailored state-of-the-art scientific weather and climate data. Such integration of scientific and local knowledges was one of the foundations of the human-centred approach taken to co-creating climate services in the recently finalised I-CISK research project, supported by the European Union H2020 programme. Central to the project were seven living labs working with a broad range of stakeholders at the local scale and across different climates and contexts. Six of these living labs are found in Europe, including in Spain, Italy, Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Georgia, while one living lab was established in Lesotho in Southern Africa. In each of these, and over the duration of the project, a range of pre-operational climate services was co-created following a carefully designed engagement strategy. Despite a common co-creation framework being followed, and the climate services that were developed being founded on a common cloud-based platform, the outcome of the process in each of the living labs varied considerably. Clearly this variability can be attributed to the different users, sectors, local contexts and climates of each of these living labs. However, several other factors should also be recognised. These include externalities such as the broader institutional readiness and maturity of the climate services ecosystem but also internalities to the project such as the constitution and disciplinary skills and interests of the teams interacting with actors in each of the living labs. In this contribution we reflect on the diversity of the pre-operational climate services co-created in the project and discuss the factors that may have contributed to this diversity. We also explore how these may influence the degree to which identified needs of actors in each of the living labs are met, as well as the sustainability and pathways to operational climate services that are not just useful, but that are also used.
How to cite: Werner, M., Rastogi, S., Nyamakura, B., and Masih, I.: A reflection on climate services co-created across seven diverse contexts, EMS Annual Meeting 2026, Utrecht, Netherlands, 6–11 Sep 2026, EMS2026-645, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2026-645, 2026.
The risk landscape is becoming increasingly complex and uncertain as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of climate-related hazards, including compound hazards. At the same time, socio-economic development adds to the complexity of risk constellations and systemic risks. To address these complex risk challenges, fit-for purpose climate services are required that support both response-driven disaster preparedness and long-term climate change adaptation planning. This contribution presents the Risk-Tandem Framework, co-developed in real-world contexts as part of the Horizon Europe project DIRECTED. The contribution demonstrates how stakeholder-driven co-creation processes strengthen the integration of Disaster Risk Management (DRM) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA), resulting in innovative governance mechanisms.
The Risk-Tandem Framework is a novel, iterative approach that supports local stakeholders to co-produce knowledge, deepening their understanding of risk governance mechanisms, and exploring opportunities for synergies and the integration of knowledge, policies, and practices among both DRM and CCA stakeholders. The framework is being tested and refined in four Real Word Labs (RWLs), namely the Capital Region of Denmark, Emilia-Romagna (Italy), the Danube Region (Austria and Hungary), and the Rhine-Erft Region (Germany), in a multi-phase approach following four iterative phases - Foundation, Growth, Learn, and Sustain. At the heart of this approach is a refined set of indicators, co-developed with local stakeholders, enabling systematic assessment of governance capacities, interoperability challenges, and gaps in collaboration and stakeholder engagement. The framework draws on transdisciplinary foundations, combining institutional analysis, risk governance, and knowledge co-production approaches, and is implemented through qualitative and mixed methods including workshops, interviews, and collaborative design processes.
Findings highlight how the Risk-Tandem Framework through a RWL setting supports locally-led identification of governance bottlenecks (e.g., inter-institutional coordination, stakeholder communication, and access to actionable data and models) and facilitates tailored technical and governance solutions, including interoperable data infrastructures and co-designed communication tools. Across RWLs, the iterative use of the framework fostered reflection, mutual learning, and capacity development of practitioners, contributing to more knowledge integration and inclusive decision-making.
While the implementation of the Risk-Tandem Framework is a resource intensive task, requiring transdisciplinary collaboration, it demonstrates strong potential to address persistent gaps in risk governance. By moving from a conceptual model to an operational, modular, and context-sensitive process, the Risk-Tandem Framework offers a solution for thinking about shared risk challenges and applying existing tools in new ways, led by priorities of local stakeholders. The findings underscore the value and benefits of co-creating and co-implementing approaches tailored to stakeholders’ needs, in order to strengthen the relevance, legitimacy, and uptake of these climate services and thereby advancing transformative, place-based risk governance.
How to cite: Hanf, F. S. and Schweizer, P.-J. and the DIRECTED Team: The Risk-Tandem Framework: Supporting Risk Governance through Transdisciplinary Knowledge Co-production for Integrated Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation, EMS Annual Meeting 2026, Utrecht, Netherlands, 6–11 Sep 2026, EMS2026-712, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2026-712, 2026.
Decision-making around climate adaptation is a complex challenge for climate-sensitive organizations, involving a wide range of considerations. Climate service prototype efforts play an essential role in supporting these decisions by creating relevant climate information, and communicating it in user-friendly ways. However, the impact of such efforts depends on whether prototypes effectively support decision-making. Co-production with sector experts or end-users is a good approach to incorporate users’ needs. But an important question is whether this co-produced knowledge is also useful for a broader pool of potential users across regions or sectors, which has been termed ‘horizontal upscaling’. There is, however, little empirical research addressing this question. Therefore, this study aims to examine the extent to which co-produced climate information from the ASPECT project is also useful and usable for meeting the decision needs of other similar potential users. The research addresses the following questions:
- How understandable is the co-produced climate information for other potential users?
- How do they evaluate the usefulness and quality of the climate information?
- How useful would the climate information be in supporting their adaptation decision-making process?
- How do they feel that the climate information could be improved?
To answer these questions, a survey was conducted in December 2025. The respondents are practitioners from the pension, agriculture, governance, and humanitarian sectors, with around 33 respondents per sector. The survey tested early-stage climate service prototypes, co-produced with ASPECT users and delivered in the form of a storyboard, a website, a bulletin, and a presentation. Results show that the understandability of co-produced climate information needs to be further improved for use by a broader range of users. Respondents agreed that this information could support their decision-making in several ways.
How to cite: Geng, K., Dessai, S., Taylor, A., Clacher, I., Garry, F., Terrado Casanovas, M., Delgado Torres, C., Torralba, V., Calderaro, C., and Taddeo, S.: Scaling up co-produced climate information to meet the needs of other potential users, EMS Annual Meeting 2026, Utrecht, Netherlands, 6–11 Sep 2026, EMS2026-720, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2026-720, 2026.
Water allocation during drought often prioritizes short-term human demands over freshwater ecosystem needs. An important barrier to reconciling socio-economic and environmental water uses is the high uncertainty surrounding drought onset, evolution, and cessation. Climate services providing seasonal forecasts of water availability offer potential to reduce this uncertainty and support more proactive management. However, their use remains limited due to misalignment with decision-making practices and low user trust. This study engages with decision-makers in the Douro River Basin (Spain) to investigate how seasonal forecasts can minimize environmental flow restrictions during drought while avoiding unnecessary irrigation restrictions in the Órbigo catchment. Through co-creation with decision-makers we explore how seasonal forecasts could add value. We then assess this potential value through a seasonal forecasting modelling chain adapted to user preferences and simulating their decision processes, particularly in the trade-off between allocation to irrigation water use and environmental flows. Our results reveal that decision-makers are more interested in forecast probabilities relative to climatological decision thresholds (i.e. anomalies) than absolute forecast magnitudes, likely influenced by initially low trust in forecasts. Model results over a 40-year period (1981-2020) indicate that during most drought years, accurate forecasts enable maintaining environmental flows, particularly during drought recovery, and largely without compromising irrigation restrictions. In some years, accurate forecasts generated co-benefits by reducing both environmental and irrigation restrictions, while in others, inaccurate forecasts led to higher unnecessary irrigation restrictions, relative to current practices. This study demonstrates that climate services can, with proper stakeholder involvement, provide seasonal forecasts that enhance environmental flow management during drought, thereby reducing conflicts and supporting the objectives of the European Water Framework Directive.
How to cite: Ramos Sánchez, C., Werner, M., De Stefano, L., and Paredes-Arquiola, J.: Can climate services help reconcile environmental flows and irrigation water allocation during drought?, EMS Annual Meeting 2026, Utrecht, Netherlands, 6–11 Sep 2026, EMS2026-386, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2026-386, 2026.
The accelerating impacts of climate change necessitate sustained adaptation efforts over the coming decades, even if global warming targets are achieved. Effective adaptation requires reliable data and information on climate change and its associated socio-economic impacts, particularly at the local level, where adaptation is primarily implemented. Although numerous EU-level initiatives provide data and information to support local adaptation, their uptake among local practitioners has remained limited. This study seeks to better understand the cross-cutting factors shaping the use of these resources in a rapidly evolving climate services landscape and, thereby, to support ongoing improvement. We examine perspectives from key stakeholders, including local practitioners, data producers, policy‑domain experts, and researchers across the EU, collected via an online survey (n=56) conducted in spring 2024 and summer 2025 and interviews (n=13) in late 2025. The findings reveal challenges and potential solutions that extend beyond the content of EU-level data and information resources, reflecting wider considerations at the science–practice interface and within governance and political contexts. Key factors include limited awareness of and guidance on available resources, differing needs for spatial and temporal resolution, and considerations of accessibility and tailoring. Additional concerns relate to practical usability and applicability of climate data, data interoperability, and standardisation of non-climate data. Finally, use is shaped by political priorities and legislation, and funding, among others, necessitates improved policies for data use in adaptation planning. Overall, the results highlight cross-cutting factors and emphasise the need for systemic approaches that address interlinkages across these areas, to ensure that emerging climate services remain relevant to evolving local adaptation challenges.
How to cite: Lehtinen, E., Naumanen, H., Korhonen, N., Tatum, K., Korjonen, S., and Kuntsi-Reunanen, E.: EU-level data and information for local adaptation: Perspectives across Europe , EMS Annual Meeting 2026, Utrecht, Netherlands, 6–11 Sep 2026, EMS2026-630, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2026-630, 2026.
The socioeconomic challenges associated with the effects of global warming are such that there is a clearly expressed need for tailored climate information to support the implementation of mitigation and/or adaptation strategies, as articulated by economic sectors (e.g., agriculture, energy, tourism, land and maritime infrastructure, etc.) and by territories/regions that fully understand their vulnerabilities. In response to these demands, numerous national, European, and international research projects have enabled the funding of “climate services.”
Several national and European operational actors are developing and making “climate services” available via platforms that are often freely accessible; finally, consulting firms are emerging on the market whose commercial activity focuses on developing “climate services” tailored to clients’ specific needs.
The range of “climate services” is therefore diverse today, both in terms of the information provided (“simple” climate data, indicators, decision-support tools) and in terms of how they are developed. Given this diversity, the challenges lie in documenting and understanding the current landscape of climate services, identifying needs, and equipping ourselves with the means to characterize the success of climate services, to evaluate existing offerings, and to guide the development of new projects.
The aim of this presentation has four objectives:
- i) To document the current landscape of climate services in France and worldwide (as identified by our TRACCS community), presenting them by use and target audience;
- ii) Identify unmet needs regarding climate services;
iii) Identify a set of success criteria for climate services to evaluate them;
- iv) Propose best practices for meeting these success criteria.
This work is based on a combination of collaborative research and the collection of statements from stakeholders in “climate services”.
This study has received funding from Agence Nationale de la Recherche - France 2030 as part of the PEPR TRACCS programme under grant number ANR-22-EXTR-0002 and ANR-22-EXTR-0004.
How to cite: Anquetin, S., Servonnat, J., Hingray, B., Jebeile, J., Nief, C., Parrod, C., Cantarano, F., De Noblet, N., Joly, B., Mignot, J., Morin, S., Ruin, I., and Sultan, B.: Towards successful climate services – What are the keys of success?, EMS Annual Meeting 2026, Utrecht, Netherlands, 6–11 Sep 2026, EMS2026-654, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2026-654, 2026.
The Horizon Europe PCP WISE project investigates how participatory co-production can enhance the societal value and uptake of climate services supporting water-related climate adaptation. The project aims to develop pre-operational Earth-Observation-based “water intelligence” services that monitor soil-water-vegetation (SWV) dynamics and anticipate risks such as drought, flooding, heat stress and wildfire impacts across diverse European regions.
A structured co-production methodology, based on participatory sensemaking and user-driven approaches, is implemented to collect operational user requirements and analyse climate-data gaps across five urban and rural use-case regions. Multi-stakeholder workshops combined qualitative user-storyline approaches with systematic mapping of environmental data availability, governance contexts and decision-making workflows. This process enabled locally expressed needs to be translated into functional and technical specifications and solution requirements aligned with operational user workflows for innovative climate-service solutions procured through a pre-commercial procurement mechanism.
Results reveal persistent barriers to climate-service uptake despite regional diversity. These include fragmented data ecosystems, limited interoperability of environmental datasets, challenges in cross-actor coordination and integration into existing workflows, and insufficient spatial and temporal resolution of indicators related to soil moisture, evapotranspiration and groundwater dynamics. Such gaps constrain the operational integration of climate-risk intelligence into daily water management and crisis preparedness, as well as their alignment with regional and local climate adaptation plans and strategies. The co-production process therefore prioritised integrated information products combining satellite observations, in-situ measurements and modelling approaches to deliver continuous monitoring, sector-specific risk indicators and early-warning insights tailored to decision needs. For instance, in the Netherlands and Belgium, close cooperation between water and nature managers and meteorologists at the PCP WISE Kalmthoutse Heide test site has led to the co-creation of a daily ‘Hydromet’ alerting system. This system supports short-term wildfire risk assessment while feeding into long-term climate-resilience measures, reducing the impacts of prolonged drought on the SWV system.
The preliminary findings illustrate how procurement-driven co-creation can act as a governance innovation for climate-service development by aligning technological innovation pathways with validated societal demand. The PCP WISE experience provides evidence on how demand-side innovation instruments can accelerate the operational uptake and long-term impact of climate services for regional climate-resilience planning across Europe.
How to cite: Matthies, A., van Leeuwen, H., Campagno, M., Dagla, A., and Bari, S.: Co-producing demand-driven EO-based climate services for water resilience: insights from the PCP WISE initiative , EMS Annual Meeting 2026, Utrecht, Netherlands, 6–11 Sep 2026, EMS2026-331, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2026-331, 2026.
Co-creation aims to involve end users, purveyors, and providers in iterative processes in the development of tailored climate services that are useful and usable. Such processes are key in producing grounded climate services that are salient, legitimate, relevant, and credible. These being noteworthy characteristics to bridge the existing usability gap between scientific innovation and use in decision-making.
Climate services have been co-created in developing countries over the years. However, there is a lack of clarity on whether and how co-creation processes lead to use, and how to organise such processes to facilitate effective upscaling and sustainable use. As such, we aimed to uncover whether and how co-creation would lead to the use of a co-created climate service. We followed and critically evaluated the co-creation process for the Drought Early Action Protocol (and the revisions thereof) in the Lesotho Living Lab established under the I-CISK project. We applied the Contribution Analysis approach to evaluate the process with key stakeholders from the Lesotho Meteorological Services and the Lesotho Red Cross Society over a four-year period.
For the Lesotho Living Lab case, we first identified six pathways to ensuring use and explored how these interacted in the co-creation process and the Living Lab to contribute to the use of the climate service. Five of the six pathways showed some level of contribution to the use of the climate service. We found that two pathways: i) embedding the climate service within an already existing decision-making context, and ii) incorporating the end-user needs in the co-created climate service were the primary contributing pathways towards the use of the climate service. We also unpack why capacity building of stakeholders as a pathway could not contribute to the use of the climate service to the extent that was expected and derive lessons from this experience.
We conclude by recommending ways to organise co-creation processes for researchers and practitioners, specifically those that are not fully embedded within the Living Labs in which they work. We emphasise pragmatic approaches towards initiating and sustaining co-creation processes as well as leveraging enablers in the context. This work provides grounded and empirical evidence that support co-creation as an approach that improves the use of climate services and contributes to facilitating learning and guiding the design of co-creation processes in the future.
Keywords:
Climate Services, Co-creation, Use, Lesotho, Evaluation, Six Pathways
How to cite: Nyamakura, B., Werner, M., Castellana, D., van den Homberg, M., Masih, I., Hermans, L., and Jewitt, G.: Does co-creation lead to use of climate services in decision-making? A longitudinal evaluation of a co-creation process in Lesotho, EMS Annual Meeting 2026, Utrecht, Netherlands, 6–11 Sep 2026, EMS2026-664, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2026-664, 2026.
In Mali, climate change has a major influence on agricultural activities, leading to poor harvests and yield losses. Crop insurance can offer protection for farmers, however, insurance alone is not always sufficient for optimising their farming practices and improving their livelihoods. Furthermore, while insurance providers can in theory reach a lot of farmers, trust and uptake remains low.
A solution to this is to combine agro-insurance with climate services, to optimally inform farming decisions. Together with crop insurance provider OKO Finance, Weather Impact developed a bundled service for farmers in Mali, providing crop insurance as well as weather forecasts and agri-weather advisories via SMS. The goal is to increase uptake of agricultural and climate services through increased value, relevance, and trust.
In this contribution, we present a pilot study that ran between 2023 and 2025, reaching 1,500 farmers in Mali who used the bundled service for two growing seasons. Impact evaluations led by University of Göttingen showed strong positive effects, including higher maize yields, higher customers retention, more willingness to pay for the combined service, and a higher level of satisfaction from the farmers compared to insurance only.
Reduced harvest losses can help insurance provider OKO to reduce the premiums of their crop insurance, potentially reaching more farmers with a cheaper plan, improving their resilience to climate shocks. Weather Impact and OKO are currently working on scaling this service, aiming to reach more farmers with more tailored advice, enabling them in making climate-risk aware farming decisions.
In this contribution, we will share how we aimed to increase uptake of climate services in co-production with a local service provider, as well as lessons learned of piloting and operationalizing climate services in the agricultural sector in Mali.
How to cite: Oldeman, A., Occelli, L., and Ligtenberg, S.: Climate-smart agri-insurance: Bundling agri-weather advisories with crop insurance in Mali, EMS Annual Meeting 2026, Utrecht, Netherlands, 6–11 Sep 2026, EMS2026-265, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2026-265, 2026.
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