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Building a climate-ready adaptation society is an urgent question that cannot be postponed. Along the path towards an increase in climate resilience, a stimulating role is played by EU projects as well as by international climate networks such as the Covenant of Mayors Initiative on Climate Change Adaptation (Mayors Adapt), launched in 2014, and the new Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy which "pledge to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 40% by 2030 and to adopt an integrated approach to tackling mitigation and adaptation to climate change". These initiatives stimulate engagement and networking among cities and raise public awareness encouraging policy makers to take action to adapt to climate change. Adaptation operates at different spatial and societal scales. Accordingly, the development of climate change adaptation strategies requires a holistic and multi-perspective approach with scale-specific studies. This paper provides an overview of adaptation initiatives undertaken in 11 South East European countries participating in the SEE OrientGate project, with reference to the policies and measures promoted by the EU and implemented at national level. In particular, a cross-sectoral policy analysis is performed and an inclusive representation of measures and policies undertaken by countries with an interdisciplinary approach is provided. The analysis of the country measures reveals that unless national governments and local communities are concerned with the impacts of climate change only few of the countries included in the analysis have developed a comprehensive National Adaptation Strategy and a National Action Plans. Nevertheless, almost all the countries have undertaken adaptation actions across sectors. Although these actions have only partially generated a full commitment towards climate adaptation, they attest an increasing awareness as well as a high involvement of national and local authorities that will boost cooperation among stakeholders to find out innovative solutions to strengthen society and protect the environment.

AbstractRobinia pseudoacaciais one of the most frequent non‐native species in Europe. It is a fast‐growing tree of high economic and cultural importance. On the other hand, it is an invasive species, causing changes in soil chemistry and light regime, and consequently altering the plant communities. Previously published models developed for the potential distribution ofR. pseudoacaciaconcerned 2070, and were based mainly on data from Western and Central Europe; here we extended these findings and included additional data from Eastern Europe. To fill the gap in current knowledge ofR. pseudoacaciadistribution and improve the reliability of forecasts, we aimed to (i) determine the extent to which the outcome of range modeling will be affected by complementingR. pseudoacaciaoccurrence data with sites from Central, Southeastern, and Eastern Europe, (ii) identify and quantify the changes in the availability of climate niches for 2050 and 2070, and discuss their impacts on forest management and nature conservation. We showed that the majority of the range changes expected in 2070 will occur as early as 2050. In comparison to previous studies, we demonstrated a greater eastward shift of potential niches of this species and a greater decline of potential niches in Southern Europe. Consequently, future climatic conditions will likely favor the occurrence ofR. pseudoacaciain Central and Northeastern Europe where this species is still absent or relatively rare. There, controlling the spread ofR. pseudoacaciawill require monitoring sources of invasion in the landscape and reducing the occurrence of this species. The expected effects of climate change will likely be observed 20 years earlier than previously forecasted. Hence we highlighted the urgent need for acceleration of policies aimed at climate change mitigation in Europe. Also, our results showed the need for using more complete distribution data to analyze potential niche models.