GreenAdaptation - Adaptive capacities and resilience in urban and landscape planning

Heat, drought and heavy rainfall are challenges cities and municipalities are increasingly having to deal with. The aim of this project is the development of a set of tools and methods to enable a joint consideration of these hazards within urban and landscape planning.

Adaptation to the negative consequences of climate change, such as increasing heat, heavy rainfall events or drought, represents a key challenge in spatial development for Austrian cities and municipalities. Some Austrian cities and municipalities already have small-scale exposure and vulnerability analyses of changes in selected climate signals. For several years, cities have been focusing on analyzing and adapting to increasing urban overheating. However, changes in precipitation regimes are also becoming increasingly noticeable and are becoming an area of action for adaptation (also for smaller cities and rural communities).

However, integrating concrete adaptation measures into spatial development or the various projects, plans and programs of a municipality based on these analyses is a challenge. Two central aspects often hinder comprehensive adaptation: on the one hand, the lack of knowledge about which areas of a city are exposed to a particularly high risk and, on the other hand, which measures are possible or effective depending on the specific city structure. In addition, there is an increasing need to "think together and synergistically" when adapting to the increasing heat stress and changes in the precipitation regime (drought and heavy rain events). This is where the "GreenAdaptation" project comes in.

The aim of the project is to develop a set of tools and methods to support Austrian municipalities, which enables a holistic approach based on the developed theoretical and methodological framework for urban climate analyses.

Within the framework of this project available climate analysis and planning recommendation maps were reviewed, analysis for a municipality in lower Austria were carried out, a catalog of measures was created, which evaluates the measures with regards to their effectiveness during heat, drought and heavy rainfall, and a guideline was developed to support municipalities to adapt to climate change.