Urban areas are highly sensitive to the consequences of climate change, such as extended periods of heat, severe storms or flooding. What are the concrete connections between urban microclimates and the health of humans, animals and ecosystems? What impact do urban climate-adaptation measures have? The new UMEX-HOPE Climate Future Lab at the Lower Saxony Centre for Climate Research (ZKfN), which is headed by Prof. Dr. Bj枚rn Maronga from the Institute of Meteorology and Climatology at 麻豆官网, will address these questions. The project has received approximately five million euros in funding from zukunft.niedersachsen, a joint funding programme from the state of Lower Saxony and the Volkswagen Foundation.
Falko Mohrs, Minister of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony: 鈥淭he consequences of climate change are already being felt by us all: heatwaves, increased heavy rainfall, flooding, air pollution 鈥� they pose a health risk, especially in densely built-up areas. The UMEX-HOPE project will close an important research gap: its holistic approach will enable the precise identification of risk zones and provide valuable insights for the planning and improvement of urban areas in Lower Saxony and beyond.鈥�
Katharina Zickwolf, managing director of the Lower Saxony Centre for Climate Research, on the funding decision: 鈥淚 warmly welcome UMEX-HOPE to the ZKfN and look forward to the collaboration. The link between microclimate and health is a particularly promising and exciting field of research and offers numerous interfaces with our existing Climate Future Labs.鈥�
Background information:
UMEX-HOPE is a cross-disciplinary consortium with scientists from five different institutions: LUH (Prof. Bj枚rn Maronga, Institute of Meteorology and Climatology; Prof. Nadja Kabisch, Institute of Earth System Sciences), the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover (Prof. Stefanie Becker, Institute of Parasitology), the Technical University of Braunschweig (Prof. Stephan Weber, Institute of Geoecology), the Technical University of Berlin (Prof. Kai Nagel, Institute of Land and Sea Transport) and the University Medical Center G枚ttingen (PD Frank M眉ller, Institute of General Medicine). It also includes a broad network of communal partners.
UMEX-HOPE is the fifth Climate Future Lab at the Lower Saxony Centre for Climate Research and is part of the research area focused on 鈥淢icroclimate in urban areas鈥�. The existing Climate Future Labs DIVERSA, FoResLab, Open Cultures and Urban Climate Future Lab conduct research in the areas of 鈥淓ffects of climate change on the forest ecosystem鈥� and 鈥淐limate-adapted urban development and spatial planning鈥�. The funding period for all Climate Future Labs is six years. The labs are coordinated by the Lower Saxony Centre for Climate Research, which is based at TU Braunschweig.
About zukunft.niedersachsen
zukunft.niedersachsen is a science funding programme jointly supported by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture and the Volkswagen Foundation. The majority of the funding for zukunft.niedersachsen comes from the annual dividend on 30.2 million Volkswagen shares held by the state of Lower Saxony. These are subject to the Volkswagen Foundation鈥檚 profit transfer claim. More information about zukunft.niedersachsen is available at .
Additional information about ZKfN and its Climate Future Labs:
