FAQs
Triple-A Toolkit
The Triple-A Toolkit is a digital marketplace designed to support climate adaptation and resilience planning. It provides data-driven and workshop-driven tools and services that help policymakers, urban planners, researchers, and communities assess climate risks, identify vulnerabilities, and develop adaptation strategies. The toolkit covers topics such as flooding, heat stress, financial impacts, and social vulnerability, offering insights to facilitate evidence-based decision-making.
Triple-A stands for Analysis, Ambition, and Action. Unlike fixed step-by-step guidelines, the Triple-A framework offers a flexible approach that can be tailored to local contexts, engage diverse stakeholders, and foster ambitious, climate-resilient cities.
This approach includes activities such as:
- Understanding climate change impacts,
- Setting adaptation goals,
- Identifying and evaluating potential solutions,
- Planning and implementing effective actions, and
- Learning from the process.
The Triple-A framework helps urban planners and climate adaptation practitioners better understand risks and opportunities associated with climate change, prioritize adaptation measures, and develop robust strategies to make their cities more resilient.
The toolkit is beneficial for a wide range of users, including:
- Local governments & policymakers – To assess climate risks and plan adaptation measures.
- Urban planners – To integrate climate resilience into city development.
- Researchers & academics – To analyze climate data and trends.
- Citizens & communities – To understand local climate risks and advocate for solutions.
- Insurance companies & financial institutions – To evaluate climate-related financial risks.
The Triple-A Toolkit was co-developed and applied in the REACHOUT project, with seven city hubs implementing the Triple-A Approach. As a legacy of the project, the toolkit is now managed through a decentralized approach by Climate Adaptation Services.
Is there training available for using the toolkit?
The Triple-A Toolkit offers multiple training resources, including:
- Online tutorials and webinars to help users navigate the platform.
- User guides and manuals for the tools.
The Triple-A Toolkit offers multiple training resources, including:
- Online tutorials and webinars to help users navigate the platform.
- User guides and manuals for the tools.
Users are encouraged to provide feedback via the Contact page on the Triple-A Toolkit website. Your feedback helps improve the toolkit and ensures that it remains relevant for climate adaptation planning.
For questions about specific tools, you can contact the person listed on the Tools page.
Climate hazards, vulnerability and risks
The Triple-A Toolkit provides several tools to assess flood impact:
- Pluvial Hazard, Risk Assessment, and Adaptation Tool – Helps local authorities explore pluvial (rain-induced) hazard and risk from extreme weather events.
- FloodAdapt Tool – Decision support tool that assist local and regional agencies to understand their flood risk under different future conditions. It can be used to assess compound flooding (combination of marine, rainfall and riverine flooding)
- Climate Resilience City Tool – A database of over 50 adaptation measures based on which assist the development of local climate adaptation plans and strategies to increase urban climate resilience.
- Crowdsource Module for Climate Hazard Mapping – Visualizes publicly generated climate data on digital maps.
- REACT Tool and GlOFRIS model – Provide insights into direct flood damage from riverine and coastal floods.
- Dynamic Integrated Flood Insurance (DIFI) Model – Analyzes flood insurance premiums, affordability, and coverage demand under different systems.
- Social Vulnerability Tool – assesses how communities are affected by flooding. It helps policymakers and urban planners identify at-risk populations and prioritize adaptation measures to protect vulnerable groups.
The Triple-A Toolkit helps assess financial risks related to climate change:
- REACT Tool and GlOFRIS model estimate direct flood damage as result of riverine and coastal floods. This tool can be used to guide investments in flood adaptation by showing the economic benefits of several adaptation options, such as flood protection or risk-reducing strategies on the building level.
- Dynamic Integrated Flood Insurance (DIFI) Model evaluates insurance premiums, affordability, and demand for flood coverage.
The Thermal Assessment Tool provides a user-friendly means of visualizing past, present, and future extreme heatwave events in European regions and cities. The tool processes historical records and future climate projections to offer an added value assessment and better understanding of the heatwave events in terms of their duration, frequency, intensity and associated risk. Additionally, the tool provides a high-resolution land surface temperature maps (30 meters) as a way to characterize the heat phenomena at city level.By analyzing temperature trends and extreme heat events, this tool supports adaptive capacity building and climate adaptation planning.
The Social Vulnerability Tool assesses how communities are affected by extreme heat. It helps policymakers and urban planners identify at-risk populations and prioritize adaptation measures to protect vulnerable groups.
How are vulnerable groups affected by climate change in my region?
The Social Vulnerability Tool assesses how communities are affected by climate hazards such as flooding, extreme heat, and drought. It helps policymakers and urban planners identify at-risk populations and prioritize adaptation measures to protect vulnerable groups.
Does the toolkit include tools and services for drought and water scarcity?
While the primary focus is on flooding, heat stress, and urban resilience, the toolkit includes tools like the Social Vulnerability Tool and Climate Impact Diagrams, which assess how drought impacts communities. Future updates may incorporate additional drought-related risk assessments and adaptation strategies.
The Social Vulnerability Tool assesses how communities are affected by climate hazards such as flooding, extreme heat, and drought. It helps policymakers and urban planners identify at-risk populations and prioritize adaptation measures to protect vulnerable groups.
Does the toolkit include tools and services for drought and water scarcity?
While the primary focus is on flooding, heat stress, and urban resilience, the toolkit includes tools like the Social Vulnerability Tool and Climate Impact Diagrams, which assess how drought impacts communities. Future updates may incorporate additional drought-related risk assessments and adaptation strategies.
The Triple-A Toolkit can be a valuable resource for your region or city’s climate risk assessment by providing a structured, practical approach to evaluate and address climate risks. The toolkit offers a clear framework that can guide you through identifying and assessing various climate risks specific to your region. By focusing on key aspects such as hazards (e.g., heatwaves or flooding), exposure, and vulnerability, you can assess the potential impacts of climate change on your city or region. See module 2 to learn more about this.
Stakeholder engagement and awareness
The Triple-A Toolkit offers several resources to facilitate stakeholder engagement:
- Climate Stories – Uses narratives and visualizations to communicate scientific knowledge.
- Crowdsource Module for Climate Hazard Mapping – Allows public participation in climate data collection.
- Climate Impact Diagrams – Helps stakeholders understand climate risks and opportunities across different sectors.
- Theory of change – Facilitates creating a Theory of Change though a participatory workshop, illustrating how desired change occurs in specific contexts.
- Adaptation Pyramid – Helps cities in setting ambitions on a balanced set of adaptation measures.
Climate Stories combine storytelling with visualizations to help stakeholders and citizens understand climate change and adaptation strategies. This method enhances engagement and ensures that climate messages reach diverse audiences.
Adaptation action
The Assessment of Risk Management Capabilities Tool helps cities and organizations evaluate their preparedness for climate hazards. It provides a structured approach to reviewing and improving risk management strategies.
Several decision-support tools in the Triple-A Toolkit assist in selecting suitable adaptation measures:
- FloodAdapt Tool – Supports decision-making for flood risk reduction and resilience-building.
- Climate Resilient City Tool – Assists in planning climate adaptation measures and promoting stakeholder dialogue.
- RESIN Adaptation Options Library – Assist in identifying and evaluating different kinds of adaptation measures to address climate risks.
- NBS Catalogue – helps planners and designers in urban areas apply nature-based solutions instead of or alongside traditional approaches.
Yes! The REACHOUT project applied the Triple-A approach in seven City Hubs: Amsterdam, Milan, Athens, Cork, Gdynia, Lillestrøm, and Logroño.
The Triple-A Toolkit includes case studies showcasing real-world applications such as:
- “Expanding despite the floods” – Lessons from Cork on managing flooding in rapidly growing urban areas.
- “Beating the heat in metropolitan areas” – Lessons from Milan and Athens on addressing heat challenges in large cities.
- “Partnering with nature to thrive”- How to plan for NbS with lessons from Milan, Athens, Logroño, Gdynia, and Lillestrøm
- “Putting climate adaptation on everyone’s agenda” – insights from Logroño, Gdynia, and Lillestrøm on where to begin with climate adaptation.
- “Bringing everyone on board” – How to plan climate adaptation among other urban developments with insights from Cork and Logroño
- “Protecting People and Investments with Open Data”- Insights from co-developing services with real estate investors lead by APG in Amsterdam.
You can explore the outcomes and lessons learned in the [City Solutions](add link)
REACHOUT has worked with Climate Stories to bridge the gap between scientific research and society. These narratives have been developed for each city-hub and combine scientific insights with storytelling to illustrate how climate change affects cities and their residents to get a message across.
See module 6 to learn how REACHOUT climate stories have been developed, how they have been communicated and the level of dissemination they reached within REACHOUT cities and get inspired by the Climate Stories.
