Murphy, OrlaOrlaMurphyCotterill, SarahSarahCotterillBassalat, SawsanSawsanBassalatCrowe, PhilipPhilipCrowe2025-03-062025-03-062025 the A2025-02-13Urban Transformationshttp://hdl.handle.net/10197/27679There is considerable desire for climate action in Ireland, yet in practice it may not be seen as relatable, actionable or relevant to the reality of people’s lives. Ripple: Making Connections between Water and Climate Change in our Towns, funded by Creative Ireland, aimed to co-create a novel approach to the design of climate-resilient green space in an Irish town, and develop tools that could be scaled up and out across pro- jects and communities. The transdisciplinary team brought together skills from sci- ence, spatial design and the visual arts in a tangible way to demonstrate how local action can have a positive impact on climate adaptation in Irish towns, and provide communities with agency to transition to a more resilient future. The project sought to put people and communities at the heart of the design process through six public workshops, delivered through storytelling, co-design, making, and evaluation stages. Sixteen prospective ideas, that responded to a collaborative mapping of challenges relating to water, were co-designed and voted upon. The preferred idea, implemented in the third stage of the project, is a climate friendly, intergenerational amenity space and haven for wildlife, that slows rainwater runoff. A participatory Ripple Effect Map- ping process was used to evaluate the project. This highlighted the need to build trust, use clear and consistent communication, avoid pre-conceived solutions, embed communities’ deep understanding of place, respect diverse opinions that coexist within communities, and deliver a tangible return on investment, if communities are to adopt nature based solutions for climate resilience.enCo-productionCo-designNature-based solutionsTransdisciplinarityAdaptationClimate changeJournal Article1510.1186/s42854-025-00071-z2025-01-10https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ie/