Application of Copernicus Data for Climate-Relevant Urban Planning Using the Example of Water, Heat, and Vegetation

Abstract

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.

Recyclable and Efficient Construction using Mineral Landfill Materials and Demolition Wastes

“…With extensive experience in construction, infrastructure, and urban development, the project group's research expertise covers areas such as geotechnical engineering, earthquake engineering [56], soil dynamics [57], climate research [58,59], and education/management research [60]. The team's professional experience spans geotechnical design/construction management, infrastructure advisory/finance, and global initiatives, research, strategy, and business development through involvement with organizations like the World Economic Forum, T20/G20 Task Forces [61][62][63], G20 Infrastructure Hub [64], and OECD Executive Consultation Group.…”

“…Team members possess a wide range of skills and achievements [58,[65][66][67][68][69][70][71], including expertise in lightweight structures, algorithmic foundations of digitalized business processes [72][73][74][75][76], software-driven optimization, parametric modeling, CNC manufacturing methods, rheology and chemical admixtures for cement and concrete, and corporate venturing. Additionally, the team has experience in researching and implementing sustainable urban construction technologies using local, environmentally friendly resources in Africa and is engaged with international organizations focused on construction materials and structures.…”

Modelling Vegetation Health and Its Relation to Climate Conditions Using Copernicus Data in the City of Constance

“…Others, for instance, focus on land, marine, air, or atmospheric monitoring [6]. The platform offers a wide range of earth observation data, such as environmental and ecological projections and climate monitoring, stored in the Climate Data Store (CDS) with different spatial resolutions [7]. Although some climate indicators and gridded products may have coarser resolution and may not capture all urban-scale details, they are still valuable.…”

“…Monitoring vegetation dynamics is useful for climate adaptation purposes, especially at the municipal level, considering vegetation provides a range of ecological benefits, such as reducing the urban heat island effect. Numerous studies have been conducted and emphasise the intrinsic relationship between climate and vegetation [7][8][9], for example, by monitoring vegetation response to weather conditions [10].…”

Meta-Knowledge Guided Weakly Supervised Instance Segmentation for Optical and SAR Image Interpretation

“…The acquisition methods of optical and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images in remote sensing have been gradually diversified and improved in quality with the development of Earth observation technology. The interpretation of optical and SAR images can help relevant departments to effectively obtain valuable information, which can be beneficial for many tasks, including environmental monitoring [1,2], marine management [3,4], resource planning [5], and natural disaster damage analysis [6]. Therefore, research on optical and SAR image interpretation is of great practical importance.…”