ProGiS

The impacts of climate change are already clearly noticeable in German cities. This makes a rapid transformation to increase urban resilience essential. However, the need for action is not evenly distributed across urban areas: In many urban spaces, social and ecological problems overlap. Therefore, finding solutions for urban climate adaptation is not only an ecological task, but also a socio-political one. In their day-to-day reality, municipal administrations face the challenge that local data are not available at small scale levels or are not linked together to develop a holistic understanding of the problem.

This is where the ProGiS research project comes in: In close cooperation with selected municipal administrations, the researchers are developing a system for the integrated assessment of socio-ecological conditions. The aim is to create a tool for identifying areas in which municipal action can achieve maximum impact in terms of sustainable, healthy and socially just urban and district development – despite limited financial and human capacities and heterogeneous data availability in the municipalities of North Rhine-Westphalia. Following the conceptual development, the tool will be tested in practice with local stakeholders in a model municipality. Various use cases will be discussed in order to further develop the system based on relevant issues.