Climate Resilient Urban Nexus Choices (CRUNCH)

CRUNCH is a large European interdisciplinary project with 19 partners from 6 countries. It will demonstrate how the Food-Water-Energy Nexus can strengthen urban resilience through creating an interconnected knowledge platform with cross-sectorial indicators for a support tool and assessment framework (the Integrated Decision Support System - IDSS), to guide and improve robust decision making on future urban development. In order to implement integrated Nexus solutions for FWE, CRUNCH will co-define context-specific challenges for each of the Urban Living Labs (ULLs) in the participating cities (Southend-on-Sea, Uppsala, Eindhoven and Gdansk; Miami and Taipei). It will deliver a comprehensive overview of potential solutions, deep knowledge and evidence for the co-design of the selected urban areas.

The potential solutions include urban food production with renewable energy systems through biomass (anaerobic digestion using organic waste); holding, cleaning and draining water naturally through an integrative and systemic ecological approach combined with sustainable storage solutions and urban drainage (reducing flood risk). Using the ULL scenarios developed through CRUNCH for the participating cities, a context specific FWE-Nexus framework will be developed and visualised (supporting Follower/Multiplier Cities). To facilitate co-production and foster innovation and cost-effectiveness across the ULLs, the project proposes to underpin the processes by strategic trajectories through an evidence based framework for creating resource-efficient and resilient cities.