Analyzing Climate Impact across the Urban-Rural system through the TOPOI Method in Lower Saxony, Germany

Urbanization has historically been linked to increasing carbon emissions, driven by carbon-intensive consumption patterns. While urbanization fosters societal benefits, such as improved living standards, it also amplifies resource consumption, biodiversity loss, spatial constraints, and climate risks. The systematic analysis of the environmental impact that different settlement morphologies have at local and global level, as well as its vulnerability to a changing global climate remains underexplored. This knowledge gap hinders efforts to foster sustainable transformation and enhance resilience across urban systems. Given that climate change impacts transcend administrative boundaries, a holistic understanding of urban systems, their settlement types, and interlinkages is essential for devising solutions that operate across scales, sectors, and promotes an effective stakeholder participation.
The joint research project Urban Climate Futures Lab explores intricate relationships between urban development, climate impacts, and mitigation strategies, through the built environment and open spaces. Focusing on Lower Saxony, we explore these complex relationships systematically for all of its 42,000 settlement units of different characteristics covering 3,800km2 with 6,7 million people, as well as its potential extrapolation to broader contexts.
In this paper we discuss a systematic method to analyze the implications that projected climate scenarios—from the 12.5km resolution EURO-CORDEX regional climate simulation ensemble—have on urban areas in Lower Saxony. We achieve this by defining a framework for the interpretation of global, regional and—eventually—local climate information and the impact of climate change on urban settlements through the TOPOI-method. This provides a detailed understanding of how different settlement typologies are affected under different climate scenarios. This reveals distinct vulnerabilities linked to specific urban forms. The results will support the development of evidence-based strategies for mitigating climate risks and enhancing resilience across diverse urban contexts. The methodology and findings could be transferred to other regions, fostering broader applicability and impact.