First, improving the description and understanding of decadal climate variability is of prime importance for short-term regional climate change projections (2010-2040). Second, a sound approach requires an ensemble of coordinated regional climate scenarios in order to quantify the amplitude and sources of uncertainties in LPB future climate at two time horizons: 2010-2040 for adaptation strategies and 2070-2100 for assessment of long-range impacts. Such coordination will allow to critically improve the prediction capacity of climate change and its impacts in the region.

Third, adaptation strategies to regional scenarios of climate change impacts require a multi-disciplinary approach where all the regional components (climate, hydrology, land use, land cover, agriculture and deforestation) are addressed in a collaborative way. Fourth, stakeholders must be integrated in the design of adaptation strategies, ensuring their dissemination to public, private and governmental policy-makers. The CLARIS LPB project aims at responding to the previous questioning of the IPCC report for the region, and thus at being the regional reference for the 5th IPCC Assessment report.

The consortium is composed of internationally world-class partners involved in other international programmes or projects, especially focused on La Plata Basin region, which will ensure our project to be complementary to existing or future international projects on La Plata Basin climate change impact issues. Finally, in continuity with the FP6 CLARIS Project, our project will put a special emphasis in forming young scientists in European institutes and in strengthening the collaborations between European and South American partners. The project is coordinated with the objectives of LPB, an international project on La Plata Basin that has been endorsed by the CLIVAR and GEWEX Panels.