THE CHALLENGE 

According to the European Environmental Agency, the heat wave of 2003 in western Europe resulted in the deaths of over 70 000 people in Europe. The number of monthly heat records globally is rising and projected to be 12 times higher than in the past under a medium global warming scenario by the 2040s. If no adaptation actions are taken, this increase in heat extremes will lead to a marked increase in heat-attributable deaths – especially in urban areas.  

THE PROJECT  

The EU-funded CLARITY project set out to help city planners and policymakers’ efforts to easily identify and mitigate climate change risks. The project worked to create a digital tool and online platforms to bring the latest scientific knowledge in a tailored way to end-users in cities and regions. The tool can help in taking the informed decisions to ensure that the urban and traffic infrastructure they are responsible for is more climate resilient. “We are addressing this issue at the level of the methodology, as well as at the level of science and technology,” says Denis Havlik, CLARITY coordinator. The researchers adopted a seven-step methodology to ‘climate-proof’ urban and transport infrastructure in several expert studies in Spain, Italy, Austria and Sweden, as well as in the online services that they developed.

Project Coordinator   

AIT – Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH  

Project Partner  

Atos SE (Societas Europaea), Cismet GmbH, SMHI Swedish Ministry of Environment, ZAMG The Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik, MeteoGRID (commercial name of FARISA ASESORES Y CONSULTORES S.L.), PLINIVS Study Centre (Study Centre for Hydrogeological, Volcanic and Seismic Engieering), StockCity, EUREKA, Comune di Napoli, AMET The Agencia Estatal de Meteorologia, WSP Sverige, Acciona-I, SCC Smart Cities Consulting Gmbh, The County Administrative Board of Jököping (CABJON), Centro de Estudios y Experimentacion de Obras Publicas (CEDEX), The City of Linz