Droughts are risks characterized by their complexity, uncertainty, and a series of other features, which differentiate them from other natural disasters and affect the strategies designed to manage them. These characteristics highlight the close relationship between drought management and water resources management. The following hypothesis is raised in this study—unsatisfactory integration of a drought-risk and water resources management strategies, increases the vulnerability to drought. To corroborate this hypothesis, the Spanish case was analyzed, where droughts are a recurrent phenomenon, due to the Mediterranean climate. Starting from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) framework, which has been proposed to characterize vulnerability as a function of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, this study analyzed the vulnerability in the Spanish River Basin Districts, through—(i) the integration of the predictable effects of climate change and the increased risk of exposure in hydrologic planning; (ii) the pressure on water resources that determines the sensitivity of the systems; and (iii) the development and implementation of drought management plans as a fundamental tool, in order to adapt before these events occur. The results showed that despite important advances in the process of conceiving and managing droughts, in Spain, there are still important gaps for an adequate integration of droughts risk into the water resource strategies. Therefore, despite the improvements, drought-risk vulnerability of the systems remained high.

In a context of climate change and more severe and frequent droughts, in order to achieve efficient and sustainable results, water-governance models must take into consideration different alternative management measures and the degree of social approval of each alternative. In this context, the present work analyzes public perceptions concerning water management- and climate change-related issues, especially in relation to the degree of social approval attained by six water management measures in Andalusia (southern Spain). These issues were included in the Ecobarómetro between 2004 and 2013, a period which was marked by the 2005–2008 drought. This analysis aims to increase our understanding of the state of public opinion in Andalusia on the basis that such knowledge is a necessary tool for political decision-making processes. The results and the conclusions have significant implications for water policy makers.

Despite the severity of the last droughts in Spain, there has not been any significant shift in the current planning strategies, due to a significant resistance to abandoning traditional practices against this hydrological risk. To better understand the origin of this resistance, the changing role of the relevant stakeholders in the debate and the key issues, this paper is aimed at undertaking a discursive analysis of the information conveyed by the media in hydrological years 2004–2005 and 2011–2012, through the application of the software Atlas.ti.

Since approximately 75% of Europeans currently live in cities, and this number will rise, urban areas are the most important testbeds for energy transition, climate change adaptation measures, and decarbonisation models, on which studies and efforts for concrete change must focus. The teaching of mitigation and adaptation measures to climate change and decarbonisation models has gradually taken up space within university courses. However, the complexity of the decarbonisation issue is raising awareness on the urgency of an interdisciplinary approach that can be conveyed by spatial planning. Currently, this approach is not widespread in Higher Education Institutions in Europe but is nonetheless necessary to let new professional profiles emerge who are able to coordinate different stakeholders, data, and information sources. The Erasmus+ project CITY MINDED (2020–2022) has worked in this direction, by developing and testing a methodology for the design of a structured ordinary practice for teaching urban decarbonisation to students in Higher Education. This practice (at the same time, interdisciplinary, collaborative, experiential, and place-based) aims to offer students a combination of different approaches and working methods to investigate and improve urban neighbourhoods and districts, resulting in the definition of an operative roadmap for decarbonisation in the medium-to-long-term. The aim of this article is to highlight the learning-by-doing experience developed by the project consortium, with reference to the testing of the methodology conducted within an Intensive Course in the City of Valletta (Malta). In particular, the paper illustrates how this experience succeeded in stimulating students with different academic backgrounds to establish connections across disciplines, in raising their awareness about the complexity of city decarbonisation processes. Overcoming the strict time and budget constraints of an EU-funded project, such an approach can be further developed, replicated on theoretical grounds, and implemented within different degree programmes dealing with urban sustainability.