SMARTilience

News

In July 2020, a six-part digital input session series for municipal climate actors on the topics of heat, Reallabor, pandemic, climate protection and climate impact adaptation and spatial data started.

To the News-page

Together with Drees and Sommer and the twin cities Halle (Saale) and Mannheim with their urban GIS experts, a questionnaire was designed to find out the current state of spatial data use in the two cities.

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On the occasion peer-to-peer learning Sabine Falk (Halle/Saale) visited the New Year's Reception of the City of Mannheim to look over the shoulder of her colleague Laura Kaiser from Mannheim for one day during the work shadowing.

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Zukunfstsstadt 2019

How do the cities of our future look like?
Which problems do the municipalities face and how can we learn from each other?

To the Zukunfstsstadt-page

19.6.2019

SMARTilience Syntegration - Mannheim

How can we govern integrated climate change mitigation and adaptation in cities?

To the Syntegration-page

WDR 5 „Neugier genügt“

This interview is only available in German.

Interview in German

20.3.2019

SMARTilience Kick-off Treffen in Stuttgart

Nach einer zweijährigen Definitionsphase ist das SMARTilience Projekt nun offiziell zum 01.02.2019 gestartet.

To the Kick-off-page

Interview

Stuttgarter IAT & Partner develop a control model for efficient climate trading in Halle (Saale) and Mannheim - climate-friendly urban development through SMARTilience.

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The Project

What is at issue?

While municipal climate protection has become an integral part of strategic development in many German municipalities, adaptation to climate change is even less prominent on the municipal political agenda. The scientific community agrees that numerous negative impacts of climate change cannot be prevented at the local level in the medium to long term, and that local adaptation strategies are becoming increasingly important. However, there is still a lack of adequate control approaches that enable municipalities to strategically address climate resilience as part of a variety of different goals and to translate it into intergovernmental action plans. On the other hand, a large number of concepts and tools already exist, for example from the Fraunhofer innovation network "Morgenstadt", which enable more efficient control of complex urban development processes, but which have not yet been applied in the context of climate resilience in cities.

»Climate change presents cities and municipalities in Germany with major challenges. In order for these cities to remain liveable for their inhabitants in the face of changing climatic conditions and to be resilient to extreme weather events such as heavy rain or heat waves, every city must find the right way to protect its climate and adapt to climate change. There are many demands, but also ideas and solutions. SMARTilience is about developing an approach that supports cities and local government actors in identifying and implementing suitable climate measures. For Halle (Saale) and Mannheim, we are implementing this approach in the SMARTilience model cities.«

Veronika Zettl (Fraunhofer IAO)

What does SMARTilience offer?

The SMARTilience project aims to design a municipal governance model for climate-resilient urban development and to implement it in the two German major cities of Halle and Mannheim. The governance model should cover all process steps of planning, implementation and evaluation, and support municipal decision-makers and stakeholders in foresighted, efficient climate action. In this process, innovative governance formats for integrated municipal management are to be brought together with concrete fields of action within climate-resilient city (e.g. data-based planning procedures, innovative citizen participation formats, investment in ecosystem services and networked technologies, etc.) and tested in the model cities.

In addition, political recommendations for action will be developed for the federal government, the states, and the EU with the aim of integrating municipal climate resilience into the existing regulatory framework. In a further step, new financing models are to be identified to ensure adequate participation of the private sector in investments in climate resilience.

Overall, the project is highly transdisciplinary and application-oriented. The results should therefore contribute to a systemic energy- and resource-efficient, climate-adapted and socially inclusive sustainable development of municipalities in Germany.

How is SMARTilience structured?

A first step is to research and systematise the state of knowledge on management practices and on planning, implementation and assessment instruments for collective climate mitigation and adaptation in cities in order to make them publicly accessible via an OpenAccess platform.

The integrated governance model will then be designed together with the project partners and external experts, within the supporting framework of the Syntegration method. It will then be applied in the model cities of Halle (Saale) and Mannheim, taking into account the specific requirements based on geodata. Based on the resulting practical experience, the governance model will be further developed into a prototype.

Critical to SMARTilience's success is the intensive exchange of knowledge between all project partners and in particular between the participating cities and as well as with external experts. Therefore, peer-to-peer learning and the publication of research results take on a central role.

SMARTilience is funded by the BMBF within the funding measure »Implementation of the Flagship Initiative City of the Future«. The research and development phase of the project began in February 2019 and will run until the beginning of 2022.

Our Real-World Laboratories

Reallabor Halle (Saale)

Halle (Saale) is the most populous city in Saxony-Anhalt and is one of the most densely populated areas in Central Germany. A diverse art and cultural scene as well as a science and research location with the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the vineyard campus and the seat of several universities characterize the city. After 20 years of urban shrinkage, a turnaround in urban development towards a growing city has now taken place.

Challenges

Extreme weather events, floods, heavy precipitation, heat waves in the old town core, storms and invasive plant and animal species.

Measures planned in the project

The Reallabor Halle (Saale) investigates the resilience respectively vulnerability of the urban area using geo-information. Its aim is to determine what changes the area under investigation will face in terms of expected climate change, what sensitivities it shows to the expected changes and how high the potential is for meeting the emerging challenges.

For this purpose the Reallabor Halle (Saale) analyzes the existing spatial data across departments, identifies optimization potentials for topic-specific data stocks (data gaps) and user-oriented data utilization strategies are developed. Local vulnerabilities, needs and adaptation potentials are going to be supported, systematized and visualized using data technology.

The result is an individual spatial data use strategy for the city of Saale. In addition to specific urban areas with climate relevance (fresh and cold air channels, heat islands), risk and hazard areas will be also determined in order to be able to derive further targeted adaptation and prevention measures.

The use of municipal spatial data in particular for integrated action is currently still well below the possibilities:
Data is not be analyzed across departments and therefore flows comparatively little into higher-level management decisions. Possible synergy and savings effects of different municipal areas of action remain invisible and may not be collected.

At present, municipal spatial data is mainly be provided on a supply-oriented basis and only to a limited extent on a use-oriented basis. The use of spatial data for the analysis of synergies, for the prioritization and operationalization of measures and for targeted communication with various actors is still in its infancy. For an intelligent, smart and more extensive use of data, useful information is to gain from the available data. This is made possible by combining (spatial) data, context and interpretation and is being driven forward in the Reallabor Halle (Saale).

Inventory of the spatial data infrastructure and municipal spatial data use in Halle (Saale)
Identification of optimization potentials (data gaps, strengths and weaknesses of data usage)
Development of a data use strategy for the geo-information portal Halle (Saale), by which relevant impacts, needs and adaptation requirements for climate impact adaptation can be visualized
Communication and processing of the necessity for climate impact adaptation for the urban society
Updating and implementation of the integrated climate protection concept and interlocking with existing plans in the city
Checking transferability to other municipalities / learning from each other (peer-to-peer)
interdisciplinary exchange and networking activities

Contact

Sabine Falk, M.Sc.
Dienstleistungszentrum Klimaschutz
sabine.falk@halle.de

Daniel Zwick
Dienstleistungszentrum Klimaschutz
daniel.zwick@halle.de

Links & Further information

www.Klimaschutz.halle.de [in german]

Model City Mannheim

Mannheim is the third largest city of Baden-Wuerttemberg and the center of economic, ecological, cultural and social processes in the Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region on an area of 145 km². Furthermore, Mannheim distinguishes itself as a location of trade and industry, as a university city and as an important transport nodal point. As Germany´s most compact metropolis, Mannheim continues to grow as a diverse, tolerant and liveable city, shaped by its 320.080 citizens (31.12.2018).