Urban Areas

Credit:

EUSI / DLR

Cities have become the primary living environment for people—globally, as well as in Germany and Bavaria. They are considered engines of economic and social development. However, urban areas will face major challenges in the future. In particular, climate change is leading to urban heat islands, while extreme weather events such as heavy rainfall encounter highly sealed surfaces and complex infrastructures. At the same time, particulate matter and pollutants such as ozone or nitrogen oxides burden the growing urban population. Estimates suggest that during very hot summers, up to 10,000 people in Germany could fall victim to urban heat hotspots. In addition, air pollutants significantly reduce life expectancy and quality of life.

But even in rural settlements, people and infrastructure are at risk from extreme weather events—especially heavy rainfall and flooding.

Objective

The goal is to map the settlement areas in Bavaria and enable comprehensive monitoring. Remote sensing products, combined with ground-based measurements, numerical urban climate models, other geospatial data, and socioeconomic and demographic information, will form the basis for policy and planning. These will support the development of scenarios to evaluate the effectiveness of climate adaptation measures.

Current Work

  • Modeling of heavy rainfall events: Discussions were held with various Bavarian municipalities and stakeholders to better understand the dynamics of heavy rainfall and the specific needs of local governments. Initial model simulations have already been developed.
  • Automated tree detection: In collaboration with several Bavarian cities, automated methods are being implemented to precisely identify trees in urban areas using remote sensing data, in order to analyze both the ecological condition and thermal effects of settlements.
  • Provision of an impervious surface map: As a foundation for future urban planning decisions and to support flood and climate modeling, the degree of surface sealing must be recorded continuously, in high spatial resolution and across the entire state of Bavaria. A methodology is being developed for this purpose.

The collected data and models are continuously evaluated and fed into interdisciplinary exchanges with experts, planners, and decision-makers. In this way, a practical toolkit is being developed that provides both long-term monitoring solutions and actionable options for urban planning and policy.