Increasing urban climate resilience with LIFE

The record-breaking heatwaves in Europe this summer have highlighted why cities need to urgently adapt to extreme weather brought by climate change. And reducing the impact of such high temperatures were among the solutions shared by 7 LIFE projects at this year's European Urban Resilience Forum .

The forum took place in Guimarães, Portugal, on 17-19 June - just as one of the most severe heatwaves on record began to grip Western Europe, leaving 100 million people enduring temperatures of up to 41°C and claiming at least 20 000 lives.

The intense heat underlined the importance of the city cooling measures outlined during a workshop at the forum by the LIFE project COOLIFEALMADA team. They are aiming to cool the city centre of Almada, in Portugal, by up to 3°C with combination of interventions.

Some of the actions they have taken include creating microforests in a 0.5 km 'urban green corridor' between 2 public parks. They have planted vegetation in public spaces and installed heat-reflective surfaces on roads. Green roofs and facades are also being tested to lower temperatures inside buildings. They have also installed netting to provide shade in areas without trees alongside micro-sprinklers in public spaces.

Climate shelters

One of the messages from the forum - attended by around 420 climate adaptation and resilience experts - was the need to build public trust in climate adaptation measures. With this in mind, the COOLIFEALMADA team are developing digital tools, including a mobile app to help vulnerable people locate cool shelters throughout the city during a heatwave. The app will also provide public health information and early warnings of extreme weather.

However, the project's approach goes beyond digital solutions. COOLIFEALMADA combines nature-based solutions, green infrastructure, heat-reflective materials, shading systems and climate shelters to reduce urban temperatures and strengthen resilience across four intervention areas: COOL SOIL, COOL BUILDINGS, COOL SKY and COOL LIVING.

'We showcased COOLIFEALMADA's comprehensive and multi-dimensional approach to addressing urban heat and increasing climate resilience in the municipality,' says Diana Henriques, project manager for COOLIFEALMADA at Almada Municipality.'This combination allows us to tackle urban heat not only as an environmental issue, but also as a public health, urban planning and social resilience challenge.'

The LIFECOOLCITY project also attended the forum, where it presented its work to inform the public and policymakers about nature-based solutions for tackling heat. The project uses satellite data to map green spaces and water features across Europe. This allows people to see the positive effect these measures are having on city temperatures.

Engaging citizens directly in helping their cities improve climate resilience is also an approach being taken by the LIFE ASAP project, which also showcased its work at the forum. It is using the Worldwide Fund for Nature's One Planet City Challenge to encourage cities to take climate action.

'LIFE ASAP benefits citizens, municipalities and the environment by helping cities develop more ambitious and effective climate action while ensuring that local communities, especially young people, have a meaningful voice in shaping sustainable urban futures,' says Alice Fonseca, climate and policy officer with WWF Portugal, which is leading the project.

Measures such as planting vegetation cannot only help cool cities but also provide nature-based solutions to other climate-related problems such as flooding, members of the LIFE LATESTadapt team told attendees at the forum in another workshop.

They have also been building buffer ponds and improving riverbeds at 8 demonstration sites in Estonia and Latvia to increase the resilience of urban areas in the two countries to extreme weather.

The LIFE SeedNEB project also shared how it has been combining nature-based solutions with the sustainable urban design concepts of the New European Bauhaus in the municipalities of Lorquí in Spain, Potenza in Italy and Dunaújváros in Hungary. These are expected to help protect against floods and heatwaves while creating attractive natural spaces for people to live.

The use of the New European Bauhaus to improve urban resilience was also outlined by the LIFEBauhausingEurope project team while the LIFE FLOPRES team shared how they have developed an early warning system for flooding in cities in Slovakia and Poland, alongside using nature-based solutions to reduce the flood risk.

The LIFE projects taking part in the European Urban Resilience Forum contribute to the EU Adaptation Strategy, the Floods Directive and the upcoming Integrated Climate Resilience Framework.