SUSTAINABILITY
Bratislava:
Building a climate resilient city
November 2, 2018
Starý most (Old Bridge) crossing the River Danube overlooking the inimitable Bratislava Castle
IMAGE: Bratislava City the Capital of the Slovak Republic
The Slovak Republic’s capital is located right at the heart of Europe, bordered by Austria and Hungary on both sides of the Danube River, the second-longest river in Europe, and is the country’s political, economic and cultural centre. The city is nestled between the Small Carpathian Mountains to the north and the Danube Lowland to the south.
The population is relatively young compared to other European capitals, the mortality rate is low, and a high proportion of households is made up of families. Bratislava’s workforce is highly educated, with over 24% of adults educated to third level. The city is still growing, but the population is set to decline over the next ten years.
The future seems bright for Bratislava, but its sheltered location in the centre of continental Europe leaves the city vulnerable to the effects of climate change. After decades of temperate weather, Bratislava is suffering from increasingly scorching summers. The summers of 2017 and 2018 were the worst years yet for heatwaves and extreme temperatures during day and night. After having recorded a record drought in 2017, the city was also struck this summer by extreme precipitation.
Green roof installed on the home for elderly people as one of 10 pilot adaptation projects implemented in Bratislava in 2014 -2017
IMAGE: Office of the Chief City Architect, Bratislava City the Capital of the Slovak Republic
Adaptation measures
Bratislava City and its boroughs are working to adapt to the effects of climate change with a number of measures intended to keep citizens cool, keep air conditioning costs low and soak up excess rainwater before it can flood the streets.
Some of the measures intended to adapt to hot temperatures and heavy rain bring additional benefits with them. Elderly people are one of the most vulnerable groups during periods of extreme heat. Bratislava has constructed a green roof on an elderly people’s home, thereby improving the green space ratio and improving air quality and thermal comfort for its senior citizens, as well as helping prevent the building from overheating, improving biodiversity and cooling the surrounding area. This project was one of the 10 pilot adaptation projects that Bratislava together with its partners implemented with the support of the EEA and Norway Grants of a contribution from the State budget.
Collaboration with European peers
Beyond these practical local projects, Bratislava has looked to ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability and its peers in cities across Europe as well as scientific climate experts to push its ability to adapt to climate change forward. In 2015, Bratislava linked up with the cities of Bilbao (Spain), Greater Manchester (United Kingdom) and Paris (France) as part of the European-funded RESIN project to develop new methods to adapt to climate change. These cities are thinking beyond the recent immediate climate phenomena that we are seeing across Europe; dried-out parks, water shortages and extreme wind; and have come together to plan for long-term uncertainty decades in advance, and to bring other European cities along with them.
As part of this project, the Office of the Chief Architect of Bratislava is working on completing its first qualitative vulnerability assessment using the RESIN project’s ‘Impact and Vulnerability Analysis of Vital Infrastructures and built-up Areas’ (IVAVIA) tool. This tool was produced as part of the RESIN project by Fraunhofer IAIS in a process of co-creation with the cities, aiming to produce the most practically-applicable method possible to be used as part of the daily work of municipal authorities and city governments in Europe.
Municipal authorities need to be able to map, analyse and communicate the impact of climate trends and weather events on key elements of a city’s physical, social and economic fabric, and the methodology provides a way to do this. Using the IVAVIA methodology helps cities to understand and visualise the cause-and-effect relationships of climate change, to identify geographical risk and vulnerability hotspots, to assess the demographic, economic and local impacts of climate change now and in the future and to identify entry-points for adaptation measures and areas where priority action is needed.
“We used IVAVIA to map risk exposure to climate threats at a detailed neighbourhood scale, and the Adaptation Options Library (in combination with Climact Prio) to identify and rank 63 adaptation actions. This information will be used in our local adaptation strategy, to be launched later this year,” said Miguel Gonzalez Vara, City of Bilbao.
One of the three impact chains developed at the first IVAVIA workshop in Bratislava
IMAGE: Office of Chief City Architect, Bratislava City the Capital of the Slovak Republic
Making Bratislava less vulnerable to climate change
During the first workshop in Bratislava in 2017, staff and stakeholders of the city of Bratislava addressed extreme heat and precipitation, heat waves, the risk of urban heat islands and its implications to human health and wellbeing and created impact chains demonstrating these relationships. One of the impact chains developed focused on the vulnerability of the green infrastructure of the city towards periods of droughts.
The city is working with Fraunhofer IAIS and Bratislava’s Faculty of Natural Sciences to elaborate impact chains on extreme heat and precipitation. When this is complete, it will allow the city to visualize its vulnerability and risk on a map, or to score the city’s boroughs in terms of sensitivity or capacity to cope with climate impacts.
In August 2018, a core group of the city of Bratislava’s stakeholders including external experts met to review the first outcomes of the vulnerability and risk assessment of the city on extreme summer temperatures and precipitation. The participants included relevant departments of the City, the Bratislava Water Company and external stakeholders, such as experts from the Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute, National Centre for Healthcare Information of the Slovak Republic, the Bratislava self-governing region participated and Faculty of Natural Sciences of Comenius University in Bratislava.
Ingrid Konrad, the Chief City Architect of Bratislava City
IMAGE: Bratislava City the Capital of the Slovak Republic
Chief Architect
“Assessing the vulnerability of your city to the different impacts of climate change is a very complex task. When Bratislava started with the RESIN project in 2015, the city already had an outline of the different impacts and related vulnerable sectors thanks to the Strategy for adaptation which was adopted by the City the year before. We are very excited to be involved in the co-creation process of RESIN tools, such as the IVAVIA and the adaptation options library. In order to know where to implement adaptation measures – and what adaptation measures are best suitable, we need precise evidence-based information and tools – such as maps to help us plan our adaptation work more efficiently. We are also translating the Adaptation library to Slovak language to support our colleagues working in the city´s and boroughs´ administration in choosing the most efficient adaptation measures for a given area or development project. A lot of development of public space is done with support of private investments and I think the adaptation library is a useful tool in guiding private investors to develop projects, that enhance the resilience of public space towards the impacts of climate change. With the cities playing such an important role in adaptation to climate change, there is legitimate need for Bratislava to create its own a resilience office. Nevertheless, we are struggling to find practitioners experienced enough in this regard.” said Ingrid Konrad, Chief Architect, City of Bratislava.
The Office of the Chief Architect is now working on finalizing the risk-based vulnerability assessment based on the results of the most recent workshop, and to its outputs to the needs of strategic planning.
Overlooking Brussels
IMAGE: Flickr by Nicola, CC by 2.0
Sharing results with Europe
Ingrid Konrad, Bratislava’s Chief Architect, will discuss this progress in Brussels on 9th October 2018 during at the “Climate Resilient Cities and Infrastructures 2018”. At this event, Bratislava and its city peers from Manchester, Bilbao and Paris will share the results of their brand new co-developed tools, including an e-Guide to adaptation strategy development, a methodology for vulnerability and risk assessment, a map-based typology of climate risk in European regions and a library of adaptation options. The event will take place during the European Week of Cities and Regions, and registration is currently open.
For more information and to register, please see:
http://www.resin-cities.eu/conference/final-event/
This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation
programme under grant agreement No 653522.
The sole responsibility for the content of this publication lies with the authors. It does not necessarily
represent the opinion of the European Union. Neither the EASME nor the European Commission are
responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
IMAGE: ICLEI European Secretariat GmbH
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