Support Toolbox for Urban Adaptation to Heat Waves in Romania

A comprehensive toolbox has been developed to support urban adaptation to heat waves (HWs) in the context of the current climate and climate change. The toolbox consists of the following components: (1) full methodology for analysing the interactions between urban heat islands (UHIs) and HWs in the context of climate change; it is exemplified for the city of Bucharest, Romania, but the methodologies used can be easily applied to other cities; (2) a web-based tool that allows users to explore the impacts of different climate change scenarios on the interactions between UHIs and HWs;  for example, users can input changes in land cover, population growth, and temperature and see how these changes affect the UHI-HW relationship in a particular city;  (3) guidelines and specific measures to better cope with the UHI and HW stress under current and future climate conditions, tailored to the specific context of each city; adaptation and mitigation options are included (i.e., more greenery and lesser disruption of the natural water cycle supporting current policies for climate change resilience).

The support toolbox based on an interactive Shiny application built in R and Python provides a comprehensive set of tools and resources, which allows urban planners, policymakers, and stakeholders to make informed decisions about how to adapt to and mitigate the effects of HWs. The interactive features of the application enable users to intuitively visualize and interact with urban adaptation data, thereby facilitating a deeper understanding of the problem and potential solutions.

This study received funding from the project Synergies between Urban Heat Island and Heat Wave Risks in Romania: Climate Change Challenges and Adaptation Options (SynUHI) PN-III-P4-PCE-2021-1695.