Specific climate adaptation and resilience measures can be efficiently designed and implemented at regional and local levels. Climate and environmental databases are critical for achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and for efficiently planning and implementing appropriate adaptation measures. Available federated and distributed databases can serve as necessary starting points for municipalities to identify needs, prioritize resources, and allocate investments, taking into account often tight budget constraints. High-quality geospatial, climate, and environmental data are now broadly available and remote sensing data, e.g., Copernicus services, will be critical. There are forward-looking approaches to use these datasets to derive forecasts for optimizing urban planning processes for local governments. On the municipal level, however, the existing data have only been used to a limited extent. There are no adequate tools for urban planning with which remote sensing data can be merged and meaningfully combined with local data and further processed and applied in municipal planning and decision-making. Therefore, our project CoKLIMAx aims at the development of new digital products, advanced urban services, and procedures, such as the development of practical technical tools that capture different remote sensing and in-situ data sets for validation and further processing. CoKLIMAx will be used to develop a scalable toolbox for urban planning to increase climate resilience. Focus areas of the project will be water (e.g., soil sealing, stormwater drainage, retention, and flood protection), urban (micro)climate (e.g., heat islands and air flows), and vegetation (e.g., greening strategy, vegetation monitoring/vitality). To this end, new digital process structures will be embedded in local government to enable better policy decisions for the future.
Cities need to adapt to climate change in an increasingly rapid pace. Data and information on the existing and expected climate impact and the effectiveness of adaptive measures can support the planning and implementation of resilient urban planning. To inform urban climate change adaptation (CCA) in Germany a diverse landscape of climate services exists. However, the literature on usability gaps shows different barriers impeding the use potential of climate services. This study empirically analyzes the needs and barriers of municipal staff of different departments in Constance with regard to utilizing climate data and information. Surveying 72 and interviewing 10 municipal staffers, we found that climate data and information hold great potential for different public services but its handling poses many challenges. Furthermore, we found that a strategic approach mainstreaming climate data and information into cross-departmental work practices on urban CCA is crucial to anchor its usage in complex decision-making systems. The co-development of data-sensitive workflows, decision support tools, and capacity trainings can foster such integration. Based on the survey and interview results we designed a workflow on how to integrate such data and information strategically in municipal work processes.
