Muenster urgently needs to address urban sprawl – a main driver of increased emissions - by supporting more compact neighbourhoods. However, creating more compact neighbourhoods leads to densification that might decrease the adaptation capacity of the city. Thus, the city needs to understand how to balance its mitigation and adaptation measures (flooding, Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect). One major challenge, therefore, for the city is to create liveable dense neighbourhoods, with retrofitted buildings and new high-quality ones, with green infrastructure and open spaces that support both water retention and mitigation of the UHI effect – which disproportionately affects the elderly of the city.
Muenster has already developed climate-focused engagement programmes both with citizens (ongoing living labs) and private sector (e.g., the Muenster Alliance for Climate Protection). The city needs technical support to develop the strategy for retrofitting the building stock, public spaces and infrastructure with multiple benefits, as well as updating governance and urban planning procedures to respond to the retrofit challenge.
The city of Muenster will develop capacity to improve data/digital governance and mainstream the use of digital twins to take informed decisions (e.g., UDCW and UMI tools, for solutions that consider climatic, hydrological, air quality, traffic and building stock data). Through UP2030, the city will identify optimal pathways to accelerate the reduction of GHG. It aims to increase the energy efficient housing stock and increase installation rate of renewable energy (solar panels and heat pumps in the districts). Muenster will identify measures to reduce the UHI effect and promote water sensitive urban design (NBS including green roofs, swales, rain gardens etc.).
Lastly, the municipality will extend the successfully implemented climate training (Train the Trainer) to address behavioural change in climate mitigation and adaptation. Ultimately, the city shall develop new design guidelines for climate resilient neighbourhoods for the future improvement of public spaces and outdoor sport facilities, cool areas (e.g., benches for elderly people, drinking water facilities, tree covered areas for picnic places). This will be coupled with strong educational campaigns to strengthen the climate identity of the citizens.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. This project has received funding from the Horizon Innovation Actions under the grant agreement n° 101096405.