Urban surfaces such as roofs, façades, traffic areas and green spaces offer great potential for the development of innovations that contribute to mitigating and adapting to climate change in cities. Developments in these sectors can help to reduce urban heat island effects, improve the microclimate and ensure food security in cities. Green areas or surfaces with a retention function can relieve inner-city wastewater systems, which are repeatedly threatened by overloads due to increasingly frequent extreme weather events. In addition, multifunctional urban surfaces can save resources, which also has a positive impact on the climate. Both strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and strategies for adapting to the consequences of climate change are part of sustainable urban development, as has already been conceptualised in many places.
Innovations in this area require a comprehensive understanding of the processes occurring in the urban context in order to be able to derive optimisation approaches. Processes that take place in the context of urban surfaces, such as management processes, which either have an impact on climate change or are significantly influenced by it, can be mapped using material flow analyses. The resulting environmental impacts can be assessed with the help of the life cycle assessment. In order to maximise sustainability potential, material cycles can ideally be closed by intelligent urban surfaces, which can contribute to the creation of a material circular economy.
In the "Urban Surfaces" research focus area, methods are being developed that enable the systematic analysis and evaluation of sustainability potentials in order to derive recommendations for action for sustainable urban development.
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