Climate change is happening and its effects are already visible. The increase in frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are also in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). To address these challenges, NRW was the first federal state in Germany to enact its own climate adaptation law to promote active adaptation to climate change. However, federal state data shows that only 22% of the municipalities and 45% of the districts have developed a climate adaptation concept so far.

Over a period of four years, the LIFE project Evolving Regions, led by the Social Research Centre at the TU Dortmund University (sfs), supported seven districts in the Federal state of NRW in actively approaching adaptation to climate change.

Project objectives included:

• Improving the resilience of the participating districts to the impacts of climate change,
• integrating and mainstreaming the topic of climate change adaptation into municipal and regional planning processes and
• supporting regional actors in acquiring the necessary competencies in order to independently continue the climate change adaptation activities beyond the project life time.

The main component of the project was the implementation of integrated collaborative climate adaptation processes in the seven participating districts in NRW, following the method of Evolving Roadmapping.

Effective climate adaptation requires a framework of interdisciplinarity, collaboration, coordination, and integration. Evolving Roadmapping addresses this need for integration and offers a practical framework of action for the steps of the adaptation process (analysis, planning, implementation, and evaluation).

The Evolving Roadmapping method

The Evolving Roadmapping method comprises the following six steps to approach the complex and long-term task of climate adaptation. A more detailed description can be found in the Evolving regions project guidelines

• Step 1: Setting the framework and defining goals as the commitment for the process;
• Step 2: Analysis of the current situation including a detailed analysis of the relevant actors, specific regional framework conditions and expected climatic, spatial and social changes  
• Step 3: Development of a shared vision of a desirable future and identifying regional needs for action;
• Step 4:  Development of general strategies and creating a catalogue of measures tailored to identify the needs for action. The work was split in different “cross-sectoral thematic fields” to be able to work with a cross-cutting approach. For example, the thematic field ‘landscape under climate change’, includes the sectors of agriculture, forestry, nature conservation and recreation;
• Step 5: Creation of the Roadmap as an agreed, practical and flexible working document for future use in climate adaption by all local/regional actors;
• Step 6: Monitoring for the evaluation of the implementation and for enabling a future orientated development process.

The practical application of Evolving Roadmapping

The Roadmapping method was applied in the districts through the organisation of a series of workshops, over a period of about one and a half year.

Based on a stakeholder analysis, the most relevant actors, institutions and organisations for climate adaptation were identified for each district and invited to the workshops. In total, more than 600 people were actively involved in the project (around 90 per region).

Products and impact of Evolving Roadmapping

In each district, an individual integrated climate adaptation Roadmap was developed, which includes:

• a vision, guiding principles or goals for climate change adaptation,
• an overview of the impacts of climate change, illustrating the interaction of climate impacts and spatial or social sensitivities. A detailed district-wide climate impact analysis was provided by the Department of Spatial Planning at the TU Dortmund (Institut für Raumplanung der Universität Dortmund IRPUD), which was based on publicly available data from the LANUV,
• the collaboratively developed measures including procedural steps, responsibilities and information on possible drivers and barriers,
• information on assessing impacts and monitoring
• further needs for action with regard to an active adaptation to the consequences of climate change.

An example of such a Roadmap for one district  is available here.

The project funds enabled the districts to establish a staff position for the duration of the project to coordinate climate adaptation (the so-called ‘regional promoter’). The positions of the promoters are mainly located in the administration of the districts, mostly in the areas of environmental planning or climate protection. The promoters were part of a newly established staff structure accompanying the process, adapted to the various regional governance frameworks.

In addition, regional experts from all 7 districts were brought together in a core team. The task of this core team was to support the process and to multiply the results in their respective areas of expertise or work. In order to inform the general public about the course and content of the processes, the regional promoters were trained by media experts from ZDF Digital, a company funded by the federal public broadcasting, in the use of various social media platforms and the creation of videos. A large number of green, gray, and soft adaptation measures in various thematic fields were collected, discussed in the regional processes and adapted to the region's socio-economic and climate change conditions. Those measures include: raising awareness among the public and decision-makers, implementation of structural and technical measures, adapted planning/building/land management as well as financial support/funding programs.

Further information to be found here.

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