Co-creating a visualization tool for adaptation to urban heat in Swedish municipalities

The heatwave in summer of 2018 raised the urgency for adaptation to urban heat in Sweden, today and in the future, due to the experienced challenges and the associated risks with rising temperatures that are amplified by hard constructed surfaces, urban heat island effects, densely populated areas, and an aging population. Planning for adaptation or adaptation-related decision-making demands adequate and tailored data and information. However, research repeatedly argues for the need to co-create climate services with the intended end-users to increase the usability and relevance of climate information. While this has been emphasized for more than a decade, gaps between provided climate information and what stakeholders consider usable remains a challenge. The present study applies a co-creation methodology to design and provide an interactive visualization tool prototype for municipal stakeholders to assist urban climate adaptation in three Swedish cities – Stockholm, Linköping and Norrköping. Close collaboration and dialogues between scientists and municipal stakeholders intend to facilitate the development of usable and relevant climate information. The study is part of a four-year project, BRIGHT - Advancing knowledge and tools for the adaptation of Swedish cities to heat (https://www.smhi.se/forskning/forskningsenheter/meteorologi/bright-1.181447).

We present results of the initial phase of the co-creation process. Within this first phase of interactive dialogues and workshops with municipal stakeholders, adaptation to urban heat has been identified as a new challenge for municipalities in Sweden, which needs to be considered in a similar manner as e.g., flood risks. Thorough analyses of the complex interactions of factors affecting the exposure and vulnerability to heat are required to inform adaptation decisions and planning within the three Swedish cities. Urban climate information may serve multiple objectives for the municipalities, and hence for different municipal users, calling for user-oriented design of the visualization tool. Three objectives were identified based on the stakeholder dialogues: to use the visualization tool (i) as a basis for municipality officials’ communication with politicians; (ii) in the administrative strategy work for municipal organizations such as childcare, health and social care institutions and, (iii) in the urban planning process for adaptation measures. Stakeholders stressed that municipalities’ adaptation must both focus on existing environments and planned environments, and moreover, that the urban climate information and relevant supplementary information differ depending on planning process or objective. In addition to high-resolution simulated climate data, information on people’s locations and movements, perceptions of heat, current buildings and planned changes in the environment, tree crown canopy, access to cool areas, and the value of green urban environments, are examples of variables suggested to be included in the tool to serve these objectives.

As the co-creation process continues, the tool will be designed, validated, and evaluated together with stakeholders to ensure the tailoring of climate information to the needs and requirements of users to decrease the usability gap.