DTEclimate

At European level, the major activities towards developing strategies in relation to climate change adaptation and related policy implementation are currently supported by the ClimateADAPT platform maintained by the European Environment Agency (EEA) with the support of the European Topic Centre on Climate Change Impacts, Vulnerability and Adaptation (ETC/CCA).

“Competence Center for Climate Change Digital Twin for Earth forecasts and societal redressment: DTEClimate” aims to implement the European strategy for adaptation to climate change in Romania by consolidating a national network of excellence.

The project is to be carried out in the next 36 months and is funded through the field “Adaptation to climate change” organized within PNRR – Component 9 – Support for the private sector, Research, Development and Innovation, I5. Establishment and operationalization of Competence Centers PNRR-III-C9-2022 – I5.

The Polytechnic University of Bucharest (UPB) will coordinate the implementation of the project on the creation of a center of competence in the field of adaptation to climate change, the funding to be provided through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR).

DTEClimate has the support of a wide community of users including central and local public authorities, organizations from the non-governmental sector that will actively support the expansion of public-private partnerships and the development of a culture of real and effective cooperation between the research environment and industry.

As climate change alters temperatures and weather patterns around the world, the risk of vector-borne zoonoses will increase.

The report from March 2022 delivered by intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) warned that without swift climate action we will see an escalation of infectious diseases. They will spread to new regions (and may decline in some endemic areas). They will surge in areas where they were previously under control. And diseases that have never previously infected humans (Disease X) may ‘spill over’ from animals.

To effectively detect, respond to, and prevent outbreaks of disease and food safety problems, epidemiological data and laboratory information should be shared across sectors. overnments, researchers and workers across sectors at the local, national, regional and global levels should implement joint solutions to health threats.

A vector is an organism (most often an arthropod) that transmits an infectious pathogen from an infected human or animal host to an uninfected human. The World Health Organization identifies the major global vector-borne diseases as malaria, dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever, Zika virus disease, lymphatic filariasis, schistosomiasis, onchocerciasis, Chagas disease, leishmaniasis, Japanese encephalitis and Crimean Congo encephalitis fever. Other vector-borne diseases of regional importance include African trypanosomiasis, Lyme disease, tick-borne encephalitis and West Nile fever. Tropical and subtropical low and middle-income countries bear the highest burden of vector-borne diseases.

Humans serve as the primary host for some vector-borne diseases, including malaria, dengue, chikungunya and Zika virus disease, whereas other vector-borne diseases have more complex transmission dynamics, with both human and non-human hosts.

Climate can affect the transmission dynamics, geographic spread and re-emergence of vector-borne diseases through multiple pathways, including direct effects on the pathogen, the vector, non-human hosts and humans. In addition to having direct effects on individual species, climate change can alter entire ecosystem habitats (including urban habitats), in which vectors or non-human hosts may thrive or fail.

Because arthropods and other vectors are ectotherms, it is expected that vector abundance, survival and feeding activity will increase with rising temperatures, as will the rate of development of the pathogen within the vector. Although ‘warmer is better’ for vectors in general, relationships between temperature and vector survival, abundance and feeding behaviour are often complex Climate can influence a non-human host directly, or it can do so indirectly through ecosystem change, which can affect the abundance of food sources, predators and pathogens, making habitats either more or less hospitable. Human population displacement caused by climate change can spread the vector or pathogen to new locations or can put immunologically susceptible populations in contact with the vector and pathogen.