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About PHUSICOS

PHUSICOS, meaning ‘According to nature’, in Greek φυσικός, will demonstrate how nature-inspired solutions reduce the risk of extreme weather events in rural mountain landscapes.


The focus is on demonstrating the effectiveness of nature-based solutions (NBSs) and their ability to reduce the impacts from small, frequent events (extensive risks) in rural mountain landscapes. Nature-based solutions are cost-effective and sustainable measures inspired by nature that attenuate, and in some cases prevent, the impacts of natural hazard events and thereby the risks that affect the exposed regions.

Consortium of partners

(see short descripion of the 15 partners here)

PHUSICOS’s excellence relies on a strong transdisciplinary consortium of partners with wide expertise and long experience coming from public authorities, research institutes and universities. The PHUSICOS expertise covers the fields of natural hazards and risk assessment, DRR, and different climate scenarios modelling, GIS capabilities, geoinformatics and remote sensing, landscape architecture, landscape planning, nature conservation and ecosystem services, economics, governance and knowledge brokering to improve stakeholder involvement.

The collaborating research organizations with expertise in technical sciences and engineering include the

  • Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI)
  • University of Napoli Federico II (UNINA)
  • French Geological Survey (BRGM)
  • University of Vienna (UNIVIE)
  • University of Salzburg (PLUS)
  • Risques & Développement (RD) in France
  • Centre for GeoTechnologies at the University of Siena (UNISI).

Expertise in social sciences and humanities are represented by partners from the

  • Université de Genéve (UNIGE)
  • International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
  • Chair for Strategic Landscape Planning and Management at the Technical University of Munich (TUM).

To support a nature-based solution approach, expertise in the field of terrestrial ecology including ecosystem services is provided by

  • CREAF

and competence in the real-world design and construction of NBSs is provided by

  • Agenceter.

The PHUSICOS consortium also includes authorities from the Norwegian, French/Spanish and Italian demonstrator projects

  • Innlandet County Authority
  • Serchio River Basin Authority
  • The Consorcio de la Comunidad de Trabajo de los Pirineos (CTP), meaning ‘Working Community of the Pyrenees’)

This will ensure participation and to bridge the gap between research and practice by guaranteeing the implementation of the research outputs/results.