Daria Gettueva

Climate adaptation increasingly relies on transferring proven solutions between regions, yet measuring progress from implementation activities to actual resilience outcomes remains methodologically challenging. This contribution presents a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework developed within the EU Horizon project RESIST, designed to track the transfer of adaptation solutions and innovations across twelve climate-vulnerable European regions.The framework employs a Theory of Change (ToC) approach structured across four hierarchical levels: Activities, Outputs, Outcomes, and Impacts. This structure enables systematic tracking from process indicators (e.g., stakeholder workshops conducted, training sessions delivered) through output indicators (e.g., green infrastructure projects implemented, decision-support tools adopted) to outcome and impact indicators (e.g., reduction in flood-prone areas, enhanced institutional adaptive capacity). Each indicator follows SMART criteria—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound—ensuring both scientific rigour and practical applicability for regional authorities.A key innovation lies in the framework's explicit consideration of solution customisation during transfer. As adaptation solutions move between providing and receiving regions, indicators must capture both implementation progress and context-specific adaptations that influence effectiveness. The methodology addresses this through collaborative baseline setting and iterative indicator.The framework also prioritises accessibility. Recognising that many regional actors lack prior monitoring and evaluation experience, the system is designed to be straightforward and easy to implement from the very start of a project. By keeping the approach simple yet robust, it lowers entry barriers and enables diverse project teams to establish effective M&E practices without specialised expertise.The framework offers transferable insights for practitioners and policymakers designing monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) systems for adaptation programmes, particularly those involving inter-regional knowledge and solutions transfer. We conclude with recommendations for linking project-level monitoring to broader adaptation tracking initiatives.

Forest fires are drivers of spatial patterns and temporal dynamics of vegetation and biodiversity. On the Canary Islands, large areas of pine forest exist, dominated by the endemic Canary Island pine, Pinus canariensis C. Sm. These mostly natural forests experience wildfires frequently. P. canariensis is well-adapted to such impacts and has the ability to re-sprout from both stems and branches. In recent decades, however, anthropogenically caused fires have increased, and climate change further enhances the likelihood of large forest fires. Through its dense, long needles, P. canariensis promotes cloud precipitation, which is an important ecosystem service for the freshwater supply of islands such as La Palma. Thus, it is important to understand the regeneration and vegetation dynamics of these ecosystems after fire. Here, we investigated species diversity patterns in the understory vegetation of P. canariensis forests after the large 2016 fire on the southern slopes of La Palma. We analyzed the effect of fire intensity, derived from Sentinel-2 NDVI differences, and of environmental variables, on species richness (alpha diversity) and compositional dissimilarity (beta diversity). We used redundancy analysis (dbRDA), Bray–Curtis dissimilarity, and variance partitioning for this analysis. Fire intensity accounted for a relatively small proportion of variation in alpha and beta diversity, while elevation was the most important predictor. Our results also reveal the important role of the endemic Lotus campylocladus ssp. hillebrandii (Christ) Sandral & D.D.Sokoloff for understory diversity after fire. Its dominance likely reduces the ability of other species to establish by taking up nutrients and water and by shading the ground. The mid- to long-term effects are unclear since Lotus is an important nitrogen fixer in P. canariensis forests and can reduce post-fire soil erosion on steep slopes.