The increasing heat stress in cities due to climate change is now recognised as an urgent problem. A number of countermeasures possible in built-up areas are also well known. What's missing is data that demonstrates the concrete cooling effect of measures and allows their impacts to be verified. It also needs to be communicated in a clear and plausible way what potential cooling effect can be expected from measures, and careful thought needs to be given to which measures can be brought into line with the usage interests of urban stakeholders.
The one-year exploratory project "Jacky_cool_check" is developing the necessary technical, urban planning, and social assessments of measures against urban heat islands in Graz's residential and commercial district of Jakomini ("Jacky"). This includes calculating the locally achievable cooling potential through impact modelling, an innovative approach to identifying measures together with various stakeholder groups, the selection of concrete measures, and the calculation of the CO2 savings achievable through these measures.
The fundamental assumption of the project approach is that public and private stakeholder groups, on the basis of expert information and supported by a targeted communication process, can recognise and make use of their own room for manoeuvre in reducing an existing urban heat island.
The project is being carried out by JOANNEUM RESEARCH LIFE – Centre for Climate, Energy and Society in cooperation with ZAMG and is funded by the Climate and Energy Fund under the 7th call for proposals "Smart Cities Demo".
For further information, please contact: <link>ingrid.kaltenegger@joanneum.at.
