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CHORALE’s pathway to impact is designed as an iterative, co-creative cycle, not a linear sequence. It starts from a major gap identified in IPCC AR6 WG1 and in subsequent literature – the incomplete representation of continental hydrology – and translates it into a credible route from research and innovation, through model development, to assessment-ready evidence that can inform climate adaptation, mitigation, agriculture and water management policies. WP7–9 therefore operate throughout the research cycle rather than as downstream dissemination activities, with stakeholder input informing the policy-relevance criteria used in WP5 experiment and scenario design, while scientific decisions remain within the project. CHORALE implements this pathway through multi-level stakeholder engagement. It will develop assessment-ready indicators with modelling and assessment communities, including CMIP, CORDEX and WCRP/GEWEX, and test the usability of its evidence with DG CLIMA, DG ENV in relation to the EU Water Resilience Strategy, the EEA and Climate-ADAPT, the JRC, national climate and water authorities, climate services, and relevant agriculture and restoration actors. Three mechanisms support this process: iterative co-design through roundtables and workshops; targeted scientific and policy products; and sustained exploitation through open, reusable model developments, diagnostics and datasets. Figure 2.1 summarises the pathway from research and innovation to uptake, feedback and legacy.

Figure 2.1: CHORALE’s iterative pathway to impact. Research and innovation in WP1–3 feeds model integration, evaluation and coordinated global–regional projections in WP4–5. WP6 converts these results into assessment-ready evidence on hydrological feedbacks, regreening and irrigation. WP7–9 support uptake by modelling, assessment, policy, climate-service and implementation communities and feeds user needs back into research and evidence design.

Policy relevance and urgency. CHORALE directly supports the European Water Resilience Strategy's objectives to restore the water cycle, strengthen drought and flood preparedness, and improve EU water efficiency by at least 10% by 2030. It will also aim to inform the post-2027 CAP and the 2026 Strategic Approach for Research and Innovation for agriculture, forestry, rural areas and food systems. The urgency is clear: summer 2026 saw Europe's third-warmest summer on record (C3S, 2026), with widespread drought and exceptionally low soil moisture and river flows disrupting irrigation, navigation, and energy production. With drought-related economic losses in EU and UK estimated at ~€9 billion annually (Cammalleri et al 2020), CHORALE will provide process-based evidence on where irrigation and land-water interventions remain effective without transferring risks across water, energy, food, and carbon systems.

2.1.1 Contribution to Outcomes

Table 2.1: CHORALE contributions to the call’s topic expected outcomes

Outcome 1: Improved quality and reduced uncertainty of global and regional climate change projections
CHORALE will improve the physical realism and comparability of hydroclimate projections by delivering transferable hydrological developments – structural hydrology upgrades, scale-aware and time-dependent parameterisations, and improved representation of Water-Energy-Carbon feedback – implemented and tested across at least four land-surface and ESM frameworks. Observation-constrained benchmarking coordinated historical and scenario experiments, and cross-scale verification will reduce model dependence and strengthen confidence in global and regional projections, especially for water-limited and transitional regions. The reach of this contribution is set by the project design: water-limited and transitional regions covering about half of the global land surface (Section 1.1), four global ESMs and three regional models, five regreening domains (Table 1.4) and two contrasting medium-to-high and low-emission scenarios.
Outcome 2: Critical knowledge and data gaps in Earth system science are addressed, ensuring that future climate assessments are grounded in the most comprehensive and up-to-date scientific evidence
CHORALE will close a major assessment-relevant gap in Earth system science related to the persistently incomplete and non-scale-aware representation of terrestrial hydrology in current ESMs. This gap is clearly identified in the IPCC AR6, The EU’s Next Frontier for Climate Change Science report, and in subsequent literature. CHORALE will address this by combining structural model development, underused Earth Observation and in situ constraints, and coordinated multi-model experiments. By advancing hydrology representation, scale-aware parameterisations, and coupled water–energy–carbon feedback, CHORALE will turn fragmented advances across hydrology, land-surface modelling, benchmarking, and vegetation/carbon science into a coherent, up-to-date, and assessment-relevant evidence base for future climate assessments. Throughout the project, and particularly in WP7-9, CHORALE will maintain close co-creation and collaboration with international scientific assessment communities. In addition to the preparation of assessment ready evidence, such as scientific publications, scientific and policy briefs and dedicated engagement and dissemination activities, we will utilise the consortium’s extensive networks and involvement in regional and international climate assessment communities to position CHORALE’s results for uptake into these assessment processes. This will inform the post-AR7 IPCC cycle, EUCRA, and the GST3.
Outcome 3: New climate science evidence is generated that is relevant for policy needs and for informing climate action
CHORALE will generate new experimental and assessment-oriented evidence directly relevant to policy questions, particularly in water-limited and transitional regions, where climate risk is mainly mediated by water availability, drought/flood dynamics, vegetation survival thresholds, irrigation demand, and the hydrological feasibility of regreening. Through regreening, irrigation-sensitivity, and cross-scale experiments, CHORALE will identify where land-based interventions deliver durable benefits and where thresholds, trade-offs, or maladaptive effects constrain long-term adaptation and mitigation effectiveness. In WP7-9, we will have dedicated roundtables, policy briefs and ongoing policy dialogue to enable co-production, ensure project results are useful to policy and decisionmakers and can readily be translated from state-of-the art research into an actionable policy evidence base. The results will be relevant to the EU Water Resilience Strategy, the Nature Restoration Regulation, EU, and national adaptation plans.

2.1.2 Contribution to Wider Impacts

Table 2.2: CHORALE contributions to the destination expected impacts over the longer term

Overall expected impact: Advancing science for a transition to a climate-neutral and resilient society
By making terrestrial hydrology and water-energy-carbon interactions better constrained components of Earth system science, CHORALE will strengthen the scientific basis for assessing climate mitigation and adaptation under changing water constraints. Advances in process representation, observation-constrained benchmarks and coordinated multi-models experiments will provide more robust evidence on the hydrological constraints and feedbacks shaping the effectiveness and sustainability of land-based mitigation and adaptation options, particularly in water-limited and transitional regions. Through co-design, targeted evidence products and openly reusable outputs, WP7–9 will enable assessment bodies, climate services and policy actors to incorporate CHORALE evidence into future assessments and climate-resilient water, land and adaptation planning.
Impact 1: Supporting climate action in Europe and globally, advancing climate science and the scientific knowledge base underpinning actionable solutions towards a climate-neutral, climate-resilient society
CHORALE will strengthen the scientific basis for climate action by establishing where land- and water-based mitigation and adaptation options can deliver robust and sustainable benefits under a changing climate. Observation-constrained multi-model projections and targeted regreening and irrigation experiments will provide evidence on the effectiveness and hydrological feasibility of restoration, irrigation and groundwater-dependent interventions, and on their consequences for carbon sequestration, water availability, drought and flood risk. By identifying the physical thresholds that determine where such interventions are viable, CHORALE will turn improved Earth system understanding into actionable knowledge for climate-resilient and climate-neutral pathways. WP7–9 will test and communicate this evidence with DG CLIMA, DG ENV, the EEA, Climate-ADAPT, the JRC, national climate and water authorities, and risk-management organisations, supporting its use in adaptation planning, water-resilience strategies, land-restoration choices, irrigation planning and climate-risk assessment.
Impact 2: Closing key knowledge gaps related to climate change, thereby contributing substantially to key European and international assessments
CHORALE will close a major assessment-relevant knowledge gap by improving the representation of terrestrial hydrology and its coupling with energy, vegetation and carbon in Earth system models, particularly in water-limited and transitional regions. It will establish a traceable evidence chain from observational constraints and process evaluation to transferable model developments, coordinated multi-model experiments and assessment-ready results. This will provide more robust evidence on hydrological feedbacks, water constraints and their implications for land-carbon dynamics, regreening and irrigation, with uncertainties, applicability limits and model dependence explicitly characterised. Open diagnostics, protocols, model developments and documented datasets will enable reuse by the wider community and provide inputs to future CMIP, CORDEX, IPCC, EUCRA and IPBES-related assessments. WP7–9 will engage directly with relevant international assessment and scientific coordination communities to align outputs with assessment needs and facilitate their uptake in future assessment cycles.
Impact 3: Strengthening the European Research Area on climate change by boosting scientific excellence and capacity in an inclusive manner across the participating countries
CHORALE will strengthen the European Research Area and its links with Canada by connecting expertise in hydrology, Earth system modelling, vegetation and carbon-cycle science, Earth Observation and model evaluation within a common interdisciplinary framework. Co-development across multiple modelling systems, shared workflows and systematic transferability testing will turn model-specific advances into reusable scientific capability and promote common evaluation practices across participating institutions. Openly released model developments, diagnostics and protocols – supported by documentation, practical examples, science-integration workshops and webinars – will reduce barriers to reuse, improve comparability among modelling systems and enable researchers beyond the consortium to apply and further develop CHORALE methods.
Impact 4: Maximising synergies between mitigation and adaptation and with other policy priorities and the Sustainable Development Goals by exploring co-benefits, trade-offs and potential unintended consequences
CHORALE will reveal where land- and water-based mitigation and adaptation actions generate synergies and co-benefits, and where hydrological constraints lead to trade-offs or unintended consequences. By jointly assessing regreening and irrigation responses, water availability, carbon-cycle responses and drought/heat-related risks, CHORALE will identify conditions under which land-based interventions may become hydrologically unsustainable or maladaptive, and their implications for food production, water security and ecosystems. This integrated evidence will inform the EU Water Resilience Strategy, the Nature Restoration Regulation and national adaptation plans, while helping water, land, agriculture and climate-policy actors balance climate action with SDGs 2, 6, 13 and 15.

2.1.3 Requirements and Potential Barriers

Table 2.3: External requirements/barriers and corresponding mitigating measures

Requirements/barriers beyond project Mitigating measures proposed
Post-project uptake depends on interoperability, credibility across frameworks and scales, and continued engagement by modelling, assessment, and climate-service communities. CHORALE will deliver transferable multi-model developments, open/FAIR diagnostics, shared workflows, and evidence framed for direct reuse. The Development and Transferability Matrix (D4.3) will provide a clear, auditable record of which developments can be directly transferred, which require adaptation, and which are model-specific, giving modelling centres the information they need for post-project uptake. Post-project sustainability pathways will be identified and pursued in T9.4.
Persistent fragmentation between hydrology-, climate-, biosphere-, and assessment-oriented communities may limit transferability across models and scales. CHORALE will adopt shared interdisciplinary developments and benchmarking workflows, interoperable diagnostics, coordinated experiment protocols, maintain shared open/FAIR repositories; produce good-practice documents, foster cross-cutting working groups and links with international scientific coordination frameworks (e.g., CMIP, WCRP, GEWEX) to bridge communities and prevent silos. The co-development methodology (Pillar 1) is specifically designed to turn disciplinary differences into complementary constraints rather than barriers.
Availability and evolution of Earth Observation products, in situ data streams, and community protocols may change over time. CHORALE will rely on modular, interoperable diagnostics and multiple data streams, and align where relevant with evolving ESA-, NASA, EUMETSAT-, Copernicus-, GCOS-related contexts, reducing dependence on any single external stream.
Translation into policy and operational use depends on regionally specific governance, regulation, water allocation rules, and user needs. CHORALE will explicitly assess feasibility limits, thresholds, trade-offs, and unintended consequences in contrasting water-limited regions and frame outputs around concrete decisions on restoration, irrigation, groundwater, and drought/flood preparedness.
Uptake may be weakened if land-based actions are assumed beneficial without transparent communication of uncertainty, distributional effects, and local hydrological limits. CHORALE will test co-benefits against hydrological constraints, downstream effects, and maladaptation risks, and provide evidence in forms usable by climate services, public authorities, NGOs, and stakeholders more broadly. The project will communicate uncertainty, distributional effects and local hydrological limits, ensuring that the evidence base is transparent.
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