C1 - Sustainable Adaptation Scenarios for Urban Areas – Water from Four Sides

Chairs: Jörg Knieling (HCU), Jana Sillmann (UHH), Bernd Leitl (UHH)

CLICCS-funded Scientist: Friederike Keil (HEREON), Marita Boettcher (UHH), Franziska S. Hanf (UHH), Nadine Kaul (UHH), Linda Meier (UHH), Shefali Nayak (HCU), Ines Nofz (UHH), Benjamin Poschlod (UHH), Malte von Szombathely (UHH), Anastasia Vogelbacher (TUHH)

Team: Felix Ament (UHH), Jürgen Böhner (UHH), Annette Eschenbach (UHH), Peter Fröhle (TUHH), Lidia Gaslikova (HEREON), David Grawe (UHH), Celine Hadziioannou (UHH), Peter Hoffmann (HEREON/GERICS), Kai Jensen (UHH), Jörg Knieling (HCU), Bernd Leitl (UHH), Natasa Manojlovic (TUHH), Volker Matthias (HEREON), Jürgen Oßenbrügge (UHH), Markus Quante (HEREON), Elisabeth Rudolph (BAW), Jürgen Scheffran (UHH), K. Heinke Schlünzen (UHH), Rita Seiffert (BAW), Nima Shokri (TUHH), Jana Sillmann (UHH), Martin Wickel (HCU)

Exploring possible and plausible climate futures in urban areas

The C1 project aims to contribute to answering the overarching CLICCS research question “Which climate futures are possible and which are plausible?” in terms of climate change adaptation and sustainable urban development by explicitly integrating social and natural sciences. In order to assess which future co-developments of climate change and society are possible and plausible in cities, C1 attempts to build an interdisciplinary, dynamic, and integrative understanding of urban socio-ecological systems focusing on water-related stressors. This approach involves a complex analysis of metabolic and anthropogenic structures, their interactions and dynamics. In doing so, C1 aims to improve our understanding of the synergies and trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation as well as the interdependent societal goals to help to find plausible pathways to address the challenges of sustainably adapting to climate change and providing liveable cities for a growing population.

More specifically, C1 examines the climate-related stressors resulting from the four dimensions of water (i.e. water from 4 sides): groundwater rise, storm surges, river flooding and precipitation-induced flash floods and their interaction with urban societies’ vulnerability and risk perception, the institutional conditions and adaptation governance.

The main area of investigation in C1 is the city of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location and its local specifics (e.g. located in the Elbe Estuary and thus subject to the tides; sitting partly below sea level; featuring hinterland rivers; and, due to its size and density, generating its own urban heat island) Hamburg is subject to a variety of climate-related hazards and corresponding risks including those of coastal and inland cities with water from one to all four sides.

Coordinator: Dr. Franziska S. Hanf (UHH)

  E-Mail: franziska.hanf"AT"uni-hamburg.de,  Tel: +49 40 42838 5081