The Temperature will rise and there will be more rainfall. How could we take measures that make cities climate change adaptive? Could we use new materials or stimulate ventilation? For my PhD I focus on climate adaptation measures on neighbourhood level.
Another option would be to make a neighbourhood greener by planting more trees and green facades. Trees create shade and have a positive cooling influence of up to five degrees on the temperature on street level.
However the question is whether creating a green neighbourhood is the best option. Most neighbourhoods that were built in the sixties already have a lot of trees and city centres do not have a lot of space for new trees. If a dense tree-line is planted near a river they can also have a negative effect. Rivers could bring a cold airflow into the city that can be blocked by trees. How effective climate adaptations measures will be, depends on where they will be placed.
Therefore I’m focusing on six different kinds of neighbourhoods in Dutch cities, for example a historical city centre, new suburbs and neighbourhoods that were built in the sixties and thirties.
One of my case-studies is the Couperusbuurt in Amsterdam that was built during the sixties. It consists of low buildings and it is a green neighbourhood. The municipality wants to renovate the neighbourhood and create larger dwellings by adding a building layer and turning small parks into a parking lot. The temperature will rise up to 1,5 degrees in sixty per cent of the neighbourhood because of this.
An alternative could be to use special paving stones where grass grows through. It will become less hot in the neighbourhood and water could more easily infiltrate into the ground.
My goal is to show how the knowledge of climate adaptation measures can be used during the (re)design of neighbourhoods. It could be a design tool or a fact sheet that shows the effect of a measure in different environments and what the do’s and don’ts are. My PhD is part of the project Climate Proof Cities in which several institutions participate and discuss the consequences of climate change and shows vulnerable areas.”
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