IndiKlimA workshop at Disy in Karlsruhe:

On 5 and 6 October, the IndiKlimA research consortium met for its third regular in-person workshop at the premises of Disy Informationssysteme GmbH in Karlsruhe. Among other things, the consortium networked with Dr Daniel Osberghaus, the City of Karlsruhe’s coordinator for climate adaptation, environmental protection and occupational safety, who gave a keynote presentation on the City of Karlsruhe’s activities in the field of municipal climate adaptation. In a session on the technical product, the consortium drew up initial requirements and framework conditions that will be relevant for interoperability with municipal processes. Furthermore, the team continued to develop a shared understanding and refine the focus of the indicators.

During the two days of the workshop, the IndiKlimA project consortium was hosted by its project partner, Disy Informationssysteme GmbH, in Karlsruhe. The agenda began with a keynote presentation by Dr Daniel Osberghaus, the City of Karlsruhe’s coordinator for climate adaptation, environmental protection and occupational safety. Mr Osberghaus presented the city’s climate adaptation monitoring programme and explained examples of impact and response indicators, as well as existing data sets. In the ensuing discussion, it became particularly clear that the long-term feasibility and maintenance of climate adaptation measures depend to a large extent on the availability of human and financial resources. At the same time, there is a challenge in making the impact of individual measures clearly measurable and attributing it to climate change. The discussion also highlighted that, in a practical climate adaptation monitoring system, use should be made wherever possible of data that has already been collected and is regularly available, in order to minimise the additional effort required for data collection and maintenance.

During the working session on the technical product requirements, the team moved on to the next agenda item, using usage scenarios to determine which user groups required which access rights, indices and raw data, and what implications these requirements had for the software architecture. The joint discussion on this issue revealed that, for example, a distinction should be made between knowledge recipients (e.g. political decision-makers) and more active coordinators (e.g. local climate adaptation managers). For instance, knowledge recipients should be provided with clear dashboards with read-only access, whilst coordinators should be able to engage directly in data collection and analysis. In the next step, the technical framework of the tool is to be further developed under the leadership of Disy and presented to the local authorities for further consultation.

During the technical discussions on indicators, work continued towards the goal of developing a clear and meaningful set of indicators that reflects the key progress made in local climate adaptation. As it has become apparent, following the ongoing elaboration and development of potential indicators in the respective fields of action, that there are not impact indicators available for all sub-aspects in all fields of action which can be collected with a reasonable amount of effort, the team decided during their discussions that the focus of the indicators should lie solely on the development of response indicators, which are to be differentiated on the basis of the IOOI logic. The team jointly examined the approach to further indicator development using the field of action ‘biodiversity and nature conservation’ as an example. Reasons for excluding an indicator or giving it a lower priority included, amongst others, a lack of data, excessive methodological complexity, limited scope for local authority influence, or insufficient fulfilment of the SMART criteria required of the indicators.

The IndiKlimA consortium would like to thank Disy Informationssysteme GmbH for their hospitality in hosting the event. We would also like to thank Dr Osberghaus for the many insightful ideas that emerged from his guest lecture on climate adaptation in Karlsruhe and the subsequent discussion.

The next face-to-face workshop is scheduled for January 2027 and will take place at the Mettmann District Office in Mettmann.