Green Infrastructure for synergetic climate adaptation to extremes events: Green4Extremes project

High-latitude urban areas are increasingly vulnerable to climate change, facing more frequent and intense heat waves and cloudburst events. Nature-based solutions (NbS) provide sustainable approaches to enhance urban resilience and livability by reducing impervious surfaces and increasing vegetation density. However, a critical knowledge gap remains in designing NbS that effectively address both extreme heat and urban flooding.

The Swedish Green4Extremes project aims to bridge this gap by integrating expertise from social, natural, and technical sciences while actively engaging urban planners through co-creation activities. Over three years, the project is developing a high-resolution, multi-layered, and scalable Urban Atlas to help municipalities assess the potential of NbS in mitigating heat stress and flood risk in cities. This tool employs event-based climate downscaling techniques to simulate fine-scale spatial distributions of water during cloudburst events and meteorological heat stress indicators during heat waves. These simulations will be combined with socio-economic vulnerability data to generate actionable impact indicators for diverse climate scenarios.

The Urban Atlas will serve as a decision-support tool for climate-sensitive urban planning, facilitating the implementation of synergetic adaptation strategies. By simultaneously addressing thermal comfort, flood resilience, and socio-economic vulnerabilities, the project aims to enhance urban sustainability, promote public health and improve overall livability in cities.