Cities take innovative actions to combat climate change

With the aim of capitalising on nature’s ecosystem services, cities are leading the development of green and blue infrastructures in order to mitigate, manage and prevent the detrimental impacts of extreme weather conditions.

Heat, flooding, water scarcity and droughts are the main environmental vulnerabilities that cities are struggling to overcome today. Consequently, cities tend to experience great ramifications on the economy, housing, transport, citizens’ physical and mental health. For example, in Amsterdam, the RESILIO project addresses the issue of floods due to heavy rainfall and increased droughts throughout the year. Through the implementation of smart blue and green roofs, this project is targeting water supply, energy consumption, heat and urban livability challenges caused by climate change. In order to reduce heavy rainfall, these roofs have installed a “smart flow control” that helps anticipate the weather forecast and as a result, regulate the rooftop water levels. Simultaneously, this approach helps increase biodiversity and improve citizens’ quality of life as shown in this latest analysis on citizen participation in the RESILIO project written by UIA expert Leon Kapetas.

Being the largest city in Southern Spain, Seville experiences very high temperatures, which have a direct impact on the city’s economic development, urban planning and most importantly, citizens’ health. The CartujaQanat project is adapting the local economic structures to the negative consequences of climate change. It focuses on the reconstruction of streets, squares and buildings and introduces a combination of different natural and technological solutions including expanding the new ecosystem throughout the city. The developments encompass the refreshing of facilities, an underground gallery and a bioclimatic amphitheater. At the same time, the project aims to build a strong cooperation scheme as well as increase and diversify skills in the green economy that is further detailed in this analysis on the implementation of the project written by UIA expert Konstantina Karidy.

The impacts of climate change are felt mostly among the most vulnerable social groups, targeting especially the young and elderly. With the objective of improving children and citizens’ quality of life, UIA cities are raising climate change awareness and engaging with the most vulnerable communities and neighborhoods.

In Barcelona, there are 1.6 million inhabitants affected by the hot and humid climate in the summer due to UHIs. The GBG_AS2C project, in this regard, aims to adapt schools to climate change. Have a look at how the city developed performance indicators; tools for environmental and climate adaptation measures. Such measures include transforming school playgrounds into climate shelters and remaining open for the public when off the academic calendar. In order to combat the heat and target social vulnerability, green, grey and blue infrastructures will be implemented. In return, this will highly improve the children and citizens’ quality of life, refresh urban metabolism and lastly, ensure public and livable spaces in all neighborhoods.

Another city striving to become a more climate resilient-city and targeting vulnerable groups is Paris. The OASIS project is addressing the inevitable challenge of mitigating extreme heatwaves, further exacerbated by the increase of Urban Heat Islands (UHI). This issue has resulted in thousands of deaths and has affected the most vulnerable of groups. It is therefore crucial that the dense city of Paris uses and manages facilities from a smart and innovative approach. Hence, this is where the OASIS project has stepped in to transform 10 schoolyards into cool, fertile islands. This method comprises of innovative technical solutions such as rainwater recovery systems, nature-based solutions (NBS) to risks, water games and fountains. Additionally, the project integrated a participatory approach that includes a co-implementation stage of involving students and the local community in converting schoolyards. Check out how this translate in practice by reading the latest publication of UIA expert Maria Sitzoglou.

Due to the complexity and diversity of climate change challenges, municipalities aim to develop collaborative mechanisms and involve a large scale of stakeholder partnerships in order to target urban issues in an integrated way.

It is important to recognise that climate change is a systemic challenge that requires integrated and participatory approaches to governance challenges. Most of our related projects in this case, focus on comprehensive collaborative schemes and mechanisms to capitalise on multi-stakeholder and multi-level partnerships. The city of Manchester, for example, is developing a set of mechanisms to fund, deliver and maintain green infrastructure and NBS projects to increase investors’ confidence in making such investments. The associated project, IGNITION, aims to increase the cities’ urban green infrastructure needed to achieve climate resilience. Listen to this podcast on how the project is going beyond conventional approaches and finds innovative options for local authorities to boost NBS and green spaces.

The urban areas of Riba-roja de Tùria shares a wildland zone that is experiencing a growing exposure and risk of forest fires because of climate change. Over the past years, the fires have become more frequent and thus, more harmful to the growing urban population. To deliver technical and innovative solutions to these challenges, the municipalities have built a strong governance partnership scheme to protect the forest and build fire resilience. Accordingly, this helps the GUARDIAN project implement a hydraulic infrastructure in order to supply recycled water between the two Natural Parks in addition to creating a defensive barrier made up of irrigation and sprinklers. More hands-on experience on forest management works is described in this latest interview of UIA expert Elsa Pastor with Ferran Dalmau, a forestry engineer with MSc on Wildland Fire Science and Integrative Management.