Climate Model Berlin - Planning Advices Urban Climate 2015

This text is essentially based on the contents of the supplementary publication “Planning advice map for urban climate 2015 – Accompanying document for online version” (SenStadtUm 2015), which can be downloaded from here [German only]. Only the core statements are given here as the contents, in order to avoid redundancies. In the accompanying document, all important topics are dealt with in adequate detail and all evaluation methods are also described in detail.

Introduction

A central objective of the Berlin Urban Development is to maintain / create an urban climate healthy for humans (SenStadtUm 2011). In the shape of the planning advice map (hereinafter: PHK) urban climate, an instrument for supporting this objective becomes available to the Administration since 2004.

The task of the PHK is “to highlight the areas and planning tasks relevant for a possibly optimum space classification under aspects of climate and air hygiene. It takes up the climatic and air-hygiene phenomena relevant for planning, which as part or small-scale special features or characteristics deviate significantly from the general climatic conditions and the large-scale air-hygiene situation and effect the health and well-being of humans […]” (Association of German Engineers 2015).

Since the air-hygiene effect complex has already adequately been covered by the Berlin air cleaning plan 2011-2017 (SenStadtUm 2013), the PHK edition 2015 puts the focus on the thermal components of the urban climate of Berlin, without however completely ruling out the air-hygiene area. The 2016 edition represents the second update of the technical map and with its publication in the environment atlas / FIS Broker replaces the 2009 edition as the basis for technical planning and evaluation for considering the city-climatic issues in the urban development of Berlin. The update was carried out in the scope of the EFRE project “GIS-supported modelling of parameters relevant for urban climate on the basis of high resolution building and vegetation data” between 2013 and 2015. This project was financed by European Funds for Regional Development (EFRE) and the City State of Berlin (project number: 027EFRE GDI) for measures for building up the geo-data infrastructure (GDI) (SenStadtUm 2015b).

As compared to the 2009 version of the planning advice map, mainly the following enhancements relevant for the planning process can be made out:

• The horizontal resolution of the models could be increased from 50 m to 10 m (factor of 25),
• individual green structures and buildings are now considered explicitly by the model,
• the increased spatial accuracy permits statements not only for the overall city planning (F-plan, landscape plan, StEP), but also for the B-plan level,
• along with the settlement areas and the green/open spaces, the public roads, paths and places are also viewed individually,
• along with the night situation, the situation during the day is also equally included in the evaluation,
• the contents of the PHK are agreed upon intensively with representatives of the responsible departments at the senate and district level,
• the viewed catalogue of measures is much more extensive, differentiated with respect to content and aligned more individually to the viewed partial areas.

The relationship between human health and the urban climate, which is considered in the PHK at least rudimentarily with the inclusion of demographic factors, is viewed in a separate excursus (Scherber 2016) under special consideration of results present for Berlin.