It is an invaluable opportunity for enrichment that also enables scientific knowledge to engage in a dialogue with those responsible for managing the territory regarding the real needs of each specific context.
Pilar Andrés, new European Commission expert on adaptation to climate change
The Roster of Experts advising the European Commission’s Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change now includes Pilar Andrés Pastor, a researcher at CREAF and a specialist in ecology and soil biodiversity. This team, composed of experts from 23 countries across various fields of knowledge, provides technical advice, facilitates knowledge exchange, and fosters collaboration with public authorities and other stakeholders at the European level. The Mission’s scope of action ranges from small-scale interventions—such as creating climate refuges in public spaces—to the enhancement or restoration of ecosystem services at the municipal, regional, or watershed level. Furthermore, it drives innovation in materials, techniques, procedures, and both conceptual and operational frameworks. Reliable monitoring systems and the management of heterogeneous datasets are also of particular importance.
Pilar Andrés explains that the EC Climate Change Adaptation Mission "has a consulting function at the service of any European administration, which can benefit from the information generated to guide laws. And it is also at the service of administrations and civil organizations on a smaller scale for any objective that involves increasing resilience and adaptive capacity to climate change".
Pilar Andrés' commitment involves contributing her experience in the biological quality of soils and their restoration, apart from her journey related to integrated territorial planning and restoration with ecological criteria. Her involvement also includes coordinating multidisciplinary groups of experts to address challenges such as the assessment of the ecosystem services provided by the soil. A practical application in this case has been to advise the European Parliament on the scientific component of carbon sequestration in soils. Likewise, the researcher has also been involved in coordinating plans to monitor nature-based solutions aimed at natural and agricultural areas, industrial processes and cities.
Pilar Andrés Pastor
According to the researcher, being part of this community offers an opportunity for scientific enrichment and for engaging with professionals from fields beyond science. As she explains, "it is an invaluable source of enrichment". She particularly highlights the contact with those responsible for land management, which allows for a dialogue between scientific knowledge and the real-world needs and possibilities of each specific context.
The community comprises 82 specialists from the European Union, Great Britain, Turkey, Switzerland, and Norway, 13 of whom are from Spain. Of these 13, only 4 belong to research-focused institutions: CEAM, the University of A Coruña, the University of the Basque Country, and CREAF.
