Priority themes and other activities

The NCCS develops user-centred climate services in a variety of priority themes. These services serve as a basis for decision-making in administrative, political, economic and societal spheres.

Topics

Climate Change Scenarios for Switzerland

Where and how does climate change affect Switzerland?

Forestry

Which types of trees should we be encouraging now? Which ones are able to provide good timber yields and serve as habitats for flora and fauna in spite of high temperatures and drought?

Health

To what extent will heat waves increase? What implications will this have for the population?

Animal health and food safety

The Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO) is constantly investigating the link between climate, animal health and food safety. This research is making it possible to identify risks to humans and animals at an early stage and take countermeasures in good time.

Agriculture

Is pressure from pests increasing in fruit growing, viticulture and arable farming? What implications does this have for plant protection?

Energy

Is the roof of my house suitable for solar panels?

Water resources

How will water availability and quality change? How can drinking water security be ensured everywhere in Switzerland going forward?

Dealing with natural hazards

Will there be heavier rainfall and bigger floods in future? How can we improve the ways in which we deal with natural hazards in a changing climate?

Hail

Where does it hail most frequently in Switzerland? How large can hail stones grow in extreme cases?

The NCCS is currently developing climate services in eight sectoral and cross-sectoral priority themes. Other projects are also planned for the future. The current priority themes are:

CH2018 climate scenarios

CH2018 prepares climate change scenarios for Switzerland based on the latest climate model simulations, taking account of user needs.

Hydrological principles of climate change

The core topic of the NCCS Hydro-CH2018 focusses on the water resources and their future development. The objective is to supply the necessary fundamental hydrological principles for adaptation.

Hail Climate Switzerland

High quality information is important to reduce damage from hail. Using innovative data and methods, the Swiss data base and hazard analysis are unified and significantly improved.

Crop pests

Climate plays a key role for the distribution and development of harmful organisms. Scenarios predicting future changes in the prevalence of pests and pathogens serve as a basis for planning adaptation measures in plant protection.

Forest functions and climate change

Climate change affects the forest functions, forest health, the distribution of tree species and the forest as carbon sink. Recommendations for adapted forest management are being developed.

Climate Change and Civil Protection

Extreme climatic events and natural hazard processes: how representative scenarios for extreme climatic events can improve civil protection measures.

Human health

Climate Change and Human Health – what the effects of heat waves on health are and how preventive measures can be implemented.

Animal health and food safety

The Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO) is constantly investigating the link between climate, animal health and food safety. This research is making it possible to identify risks to humans and animals at an early stage and take countermeasures in good time.

Further activities

Climandes

Those in poverty are the most severely impacted by climate change. Climandes is working to ensure that small-scale farmers in Peru have access to weather and climate forecasts.
Darstellung des Solarpotentials von Hausächern in Locarno. Die Farbe rot zeigt ein hohes Potential an, die Farben gelb udn orange ein mittleres sowie blau ein geringes Potential.

Solar energy: The solar potential of all roofs in Switzerland – a climate-related service

How much energy or heat can my roof produce? The interactive application sonnendach.ch allows users anywhere in Switzerland to see how well suited their building is for producing energy.

Climate-adapted construction

Buildings constructed today are exposed to the climatic changes of tomorrow. To optimally design the building architecture and technology and to assess the future energy demand of buildings, a Switzerland-wide basis in the form of hourly climate data sets for building simulations is now available.

Climate services video

Learn more about the NCCS key focus areas in our NCCS video.

Last modification 22.12.2021

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Contact

Office of the National Centre for Climate Services NCCS
Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss
Operation Center 1
P.O. Box
CH-8058 Zurich-Airport

Director
Angela Michiko Hama 

Contact

Print contact

https://www.nccs.admin.ch/content/nccs/en/home/the-nccs/priority-themes.html