Climate change: how to fight destructive effects in urban areas - concepts, planning approaches and measures in Germany

Abstract

General Challenges caused by climate change are taken for serious both by federal and subordinated government officials in Germany. On the one hand energy supply is being shifted away from traditional production towards renewable sources. On the other hand development strategies aiming at prevention of CO2 and at adaption of urban settlements to worse climate conditions in the future are being transferred to practical measures on the level of regions and municipalities. Some selected examples of the more important measures and how they can be applied, although there is strong resistance against innovations, are described in this paper. The examples are related to local sources of renewable energy, to combined environmental and ordinary land use planning, improvement of carbon storage, reduction of surface sealing and improvement of urban green. Remote sensing and GIS provide the most important tools for implementation of planning concepts.