In Rhone-Alps region, a Working Group on Adaptation to Climate Change (GRAACC) has been created at the initiative of Rhônealpénergie-Environnement (RAEE) in June 2008.  Approximately forty representatives of research, local authorities, agriculture, environment and associations attended the first meeting. This group aims to make regional actors aware of this issue and to exchange good practices in terms of concrete actions of adaptation.

This action and research project groups together a part of GRAACC members in order to, not only  improve awareness of local actors, but also make links between research and managers and therefore to advance and pool knowledge on adaptation to climate change in Rhone Alps region and also to bring the first concrete answer elements by case studies.

In order to encourage actors and give them tools to consider adaptation to climate change issue, we plan to write a guide, divided into three parts:

• How to make local actors aware of adaptation to climate change issue
• Catalog of projects about adaptation
• How to implement adaptation strategies in territories

We also plan some testing such as:

• Vegetalisation of buildings in the city of Lyon
• Evolution scenarios of water resource related to agro-forest and touristic activities in medium-altitude mountain areas in the Drôme “département”.

These tests will associate a community and a research team in order to begin some cooperation “researchers-actors” in the region, which is essential to advance knowledge on this issue.

Test in urban area will allow evaluating the impact of:

• Green roofs on the management of heat peaks and water resource
• Green walls on the management of heat peaks

Test in medium-altitude mountain areas will allow studying climate change impact on water resource on the whole “département” (local scales) and, in particular, the effects of potential changes of water resource on tourism and agriculture, and proposing some adaptation scenarios.

The teams involved in both tests will contribute to writing and validation of the different parts of the guide.