urbanLab Magazin 2021 - Transformation

GreenScenario asks the question ‘what happens when I…’ to compare – visually,
quantitatively and for multiple solutions simultaneously – the consequences of
decisions undertaken during the planning and design process
established community planning processes (Schroth, Pond, Sheppard, 2015). A potential
solution combining these observations and gaining acceptance as a method
within climate change adaptation planning is the application of ‘Scenario Planning’
as a decision-support process that combines a rigorous, scientific assessment within
the framework of multiple scenario (solution) generation (Star et al, 2016). Computational
design techniques as they relate to developing digital decision-support
systems or platforms, while found to be practical and implementable at building
and plot scales, were found to be particularly challenging to apply at urban, regional
and city scales due to increased computational expense, difficulty in limiting inputs,
and the increase in involved stakeholders involved in the planning process (Wilson
et al, 2019).
By describing the findings of multiple projects where the GreenScenario methodology
has been applied within the context of European cities with a specific focus on its use by a
property developer in Vienna, the results aid in identifying enablers and barriers for the
use and acceptance of decision-support tools for climate change adaptation planning.
2 CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND DECISION-SUPPORT TOOLS
By 2050, the cost of ‘doing nothing’ to mitigate climate change effects in cities is
estimated to incur costs in the EU alone in the range of 100-150 billion Euros per
year every year, dependent on the climate scenario (COACCH, 2018). Mitigating the
effects of climate change tend to occur at larger city-wide or country specific scales
and primarily refer to methods that reduce greenhouse gas emissions whereas climate
change adaptation refers to processes, tools or actions that increase resilience,
reduce vulnerability or enhance adaptive capacity, and tend to occur at regional,
local or site-specific scales (IPCC 2018). As Nay et al (2014) indicate: ‘Climate adaptation
strategies must be implemented at the local level.’ Adaptation measures have
become recently more and more associated with resilience measures (Carter et al.,
2015). Research shows that mitigation and adaptation tracks can be combined to
enable synergies (Landauer, Juhola, Klein, 2019).
Nature-based solutions (NBS) can be defined as ’actions to protect, sustainably manage,
and restore natural or modified ecosystems, that address societal challenges
effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity
benefits’ (IUCN, 2019). At the end of the 20th century, NBS tools (e.g. green
roofs or rain gardens) began to emerge as suitable measures to complement or
replace technical solutions that reduced the reliance on grey infrastructure such
as piping or concrete channels, particularly within the landscape architecture discipline
(OECD, 2020). With increasing rates of urbanisation, the subsequent loss of
biodiversity and the detrimental effect on ecosystem services, adapting cities to the
effects of climate change, rather than simply mitigating climate change’s impact and
even with the aforementioned tools of NBS, is a major challenge exacerbated by the
relative uncertainty, complex data interpolation and extended timespans associated
with climate science. As Wilson et al further note: ‘Issues as diverse as population
growth, transportation, and climate change, all present significant challenges
for 21st century cities, and require an approach to urban development that is data-driven,
iterative, and most importantly, engages the broadest possible audience
of stakeholders’ (Wilson et al, 2019).
REGENERATIVE DESIGN
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