Whether in front of heat or water masses – cities and municipalities have to adapt to the consequences of climate change and better protect themselves from weather extremes in the future. However, she will present this before tasks that have so far hardly been solvable, as a study shows. Accordingly, there is a lack of personnel and concrete knowledge in many places, but also in established processes and routines as well as the acceptance of politicians and residents. How can municipalities deal with this challenge together and make progress faster when it comes to climate adjustment?
Weather extremes such as heat waves and heavy rain become more common with climate change. Municipalities have to prepare themselves against these consequences, but their starting locations are very different. While some towns are similar to concrete deserts and are almost completely covered by asphalt, others have many green areas. There are also big differences in the cityscape with a view to the traffic routing and the course of streams and rivers. With a view to heat protection, air quality and flood prevention, the municipalities are therefore faced with very different starting conditions. Are there still overlaps and common challenges? How can cities and municipalities learn from each other in view of the diverse tasks despite the individual situations in climate adaptation?
Big differences between the municipalities
Researchers around Verena Rossow from the Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOE) in Frankfurt am Main have followed these questions using the example of the municipalities in Hesse. To do this, they determined how well the individual communities are already adapted to climate change, where there is still a need for action and why no measures have yet been taken in these areas. To find out, they asked the responsible staff in the cities and municipalities.
The result: Half of the respondents rated the need for adjustment in their municipality as high to very high, especially in rural communities and small towns. The other half was already somewhat or well prepared, especially in large cities and counties. “The results show great differences in the status of climate adjustment in Hessian municipalities,” says co-author Thomas Friedrich from ISOE. “While larger cities are already implementing measures, smaller municipalities often report on gaps in knowledge and resources.” For example, many respondents assessed their experience and expertise in dealing with the topic as low.
Almost 80 percent also stated that there is no job in their municipality that deals exclusively with climate adjustment. Where there are such areas, they are often limited in time and therefore not capable of acting in the long term. Accordingly, many managers expressed the desire for more personnel resources and exchange in order to compensate for the lack of resources on site. The researchers then developed workshops and offered them to those responsible in the Hessian counties to open their problems openly. “It became clear how great the responsibility of the employees in the municipalities and how difficult it is to manage a cross -sectional task like the climate adjustment without established routines,” says Rossow.
Knowledge transfer and cooperation for better climate adjustment
According to the study, there is a lack of concrete knowledge in many places what exactly has to be done to protect the towns from heat, flood and the like. Although there are sometimes abstract knowledge of what to do, there are no established processes to implement this in individual cases. Best practice examples and role models are also missing, as can be traded in the specific case-for example, how places, streets and houses are built up, shadow donors and drinking fountains, the built-up surfaces are sealed, streamed or renatured or buffer areas for floods. Often the existing administrative processes are too complex and the associated bureaucracy are too complex to make quick progress.
The respondents also partially complain that they do not have enough support to implement such measures. According to the survey, they are often incomprehensible, disinteresting or even resistance in administration, politics or public. “It is crucial that these actors know how to increase acceptance and willingness to cooperate – this is the only way to accelerate adaptation measures in fields of action such as transport, water management or urban development,” emphasizes Rossow.
The researchers therefore recommend that permanently establish fixed structures through which municipalities can share continuously and plan measures together. “In order to promote the climate adjustment in Hesse, we recommend the targeted structure of a transferring network for the exchange of knowledge and experience for climate adaptation- especially at the district level,” says Rossow. This would also save double structures and staff in smaller communities because processes in the district administration would be better interlinked.
Source: Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOE)