KFM: Climate Effect Management - Regional management of climate effects in the Hanover/Braunschweig/Göttingen metropolitan region | Umweltbundesamt

Background and Goals

Climate change calls for the development of solution strategies to avert medium and long-term disadvantages and consequential damage to the environment, society and economy. Climate protection is already a key issue in the Hanover/Braunschweig/Göttingen metropolitan region. Numerous stakeholders from business,research and academia, as well as policy and planning, are working on solutions, to date largely independently of one another. This research project was initiated to network these action levels.

The content of the individual research and development projects is:

1. Climate change: Modelling of anticipated regional and local climate changes;
2. Energy crops: Potential for climate adapted cultivation of energy crops, including integrated exploitation concepts;
3. Field irrigation: Potential for substituting groundwater for field irrigation;
4. Conservation: Analysis of the sensitivity of ecosystems and animal and plant species to climate changes;
5. Water management: Sustainable management of the groundwater volume and distribution of water resources;
6. Information and communication platform: Internet-based information and evaluation instrument for knowledge-based support of planning and decision-making processes;
7. Continuing training and education: Communication of complex findings on climate effects to specific technical stakeholders, as well as the media, schools and the general population.

The primary objective is to counter the effects of climate change with effective management at regional level. To achieve this, a preliminary study will be performed with the aim of broadly identifying and discussing the impact of climate effects on various areas in the metropolitan region, defining current research needs and developing an requirement profile for planning instruments to facilitate a response to climate effects. This will be done by running two moderated workshops. The result of the workshops will be a qualified project proposal for a multi-year main study. The first workshop will see stakeholders from policy, planning, business and industry defining specific issues facing the metropolitan region that are of critical importance ecologically, socially and economically. These issues will then be analysed in depth in the main study.

The objective of the main study is:

•  To simulate the impact of climate change on the areas relevant to the metropolitan region,
•  To formulate adaptation and optimisation strategies, and
•  To develop planning instruments in close coordination with the specialist authorities.

The methods and processes defined should be transferrable to other regions in Germany and across Europe.

Content time

Research area/region

Participants