Adaptation scenarios to climate change during heatwaves in the Grenoble metropolitan area

The subject of this project is centered in the adaptation to climate change during heat waves in the 21st century in the area of Grenoble, France. The adaptation measures concern urban planning, such as the vegetation of the city, the increase of the albedo of buildings, design of water bodies distribution and others. Particular attention is paid to the impact of these measures on air quality. The objective is to determine, the urban planning to be implemented to combat the increase in temperatures due to climate change.

This work relies on the widely used open-source atmospheric numerical model WRF (Weather Research and Forecast). First, a calibration run is performed over a past heat wave event in the valley for verification and obtention of the conditions that produce higher fidelity results contrasted with real measures of the event. This involving especially the land cover description and model parametrization. After, an analog model run over a future heat wave event in 2052 extracted from climate projections. This is used as a control run to compare with different results, where adaptation scenarios to combat climate change are applied.

For the study of different urban planning scenarios, the WRF model is used coupled with the model BEP+BEM (Building Effect Parametrization + Building Energy Model), developed by Alberto Martilli, with whom we work in collaboration. This model parametrizes the urban-atmosphere interaction with a high-level representation of the city that allows for designing different scenarios regarding the land cover, the albedo and the urban canopy.

The location of the study makes this project of great interest as well as computationally challenging, due to the mountainous area and steeps slopes surrounding the city. These results will be of great interest to local communities and policy makers as they will inform future decisions on urban planning and will contribute to the attractiveness of cities.