Why climate change adaptation in cities needs customised and flexible climate services

Abstract

Cities are key players in climate change adaptation and mitigation due to a spatial concentration of assets, people and economic activities. They are thus contributing to and especially vulnerable to climate change. Identifying, planning, implementing and monitoring respective measures in cities is challenging and resource consuming. The paper outlines challenges for adaptation, discusses most common approaches and argues why implementation of theoretical methods has its shortcomings. Based on case studies, an innovative, practice-oriented approach has been tested to develop a climate service prototype product. It provides a general framework that allows a flexible and customised support for cities to adapt to expected impacts of a changing climate.