Focus on climate projections for adaptation strategies

Most papers in this focus issue on 'climate and climate impact projections for adaptation strategies' are solicited by the guest editorial team and originate from a cluster of projects that were initiated 5 years ago. These projects aimed to provide climate change and climate change adaptation information for a wide range of societal areas for the lower parts of the deltas of the Rhine and Meuse rivers, and particularly for the Netherlands. The papers give an overview of our experiences, methods, approaches, results and surprises in the process to developing scientifically underpinned climate products and services for various clients. Although the literature on interactions between society and climate science has grown over the past decade both with respect to policy-science framing in post-normal science (Storch et al 2011 J. Environ. Law Policy 1 1–15, van der Sluijs 2012 Nature and Culture 7 174–195), user-science framing (Berkhout et al 2014 Regional Environ. Change 14 879–93) and joint knowledge production (Hegger et al 2014 Regional Environ. Change 14 1049–62), there is still a lot to gain. With this focus issue we want to contribute to best practices in this quickly moving field between science and society.