Category: Public Health & Public Services

How Can Municipalities Cope with the Heat?

Posted on by burkhard

Heat affects us all. It is one of the world’s fastest-growing and deadliest climate risks.

However, we are not powerless against it. Municipalities around the world are developing and sharing comprehensive strategies. These range from heat action plans and green and blue infrastructure planning to smart rainwater management, the use of AI, and the creation of digital twins for risk-informed crisis management.

Naturally, municipalities have also been tackling this crucial topic within the Connective Cities framework. We’ve put together a selection of examples from the Connective Cities context along with additional resources for you.

Heat in the City – The Connective Cities Deep Dive Learning Process
From 2023-2025, six municipalities joined forces to analyse the impact of heatwaves and heat islands, and developed solutions tailored to local conditions.
Detailed interim report: https://www.connective-cities.net/en/media-center/heat-in-the-city-2/


Cities Leading by Example
This guidebook on risk-informed planning and heat mitigation, developed by the Connective Cities’ Deep Dive, serves as a practical guide for municipal actors, urban planners, policymakers and community leaders who wish to adopt a risk-informed approach and integrate heat adaptation into their planning processes.
https://www.connective-cities.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/cities-leading_guidebook.pdf

The „Walkable Triangle“ in Kisumu, Kenya
The pedestrian-friendly redeveloped commercial district is now a lovely place to linger with its mature trees keeping it pleasantly cool and the air fresh
https://www.connective-cities.net/media-center/das-walkable-triangle-in-kisumu-kenia/

 

Greater climate protection and quality of life: Green corridors in the MENA region lower ambient temperatures in cities and their surroundings
An AI-based visualisation exercise focusing on green corridors and green neighbourhoods, designed to bring together different perspectives on urban planning from the fields of administration, politics and academia. https://www.connective-cities.net/en/media-center/greater-climate-protection-and-quality-of-life-green-corridors-in-the-mena-region/

The Digital Twin Platform of Bağcilar, Türkiye
Read about how a municipality in Istanbul combines citizen services with data-driven urban risk management also in terms of heat assessments.
https://www.connective-cities.net/en/media-center/the-digital-twin-platform-of-bagcilar-turkiye/

Recommended Papers:

Ibero-American Urban Climate Atlas
This project covers 11 cities in Spain and South America. The research aims to analyse the local context of each city with regard to the impact of heat islands. The objective is to assess changes in temperature patterns and their territorial effects within cities.
Union of Ibero-American Capital Cities (UCCI) and ICLEI South America
https://e-library.iclei.org/uploads/IBER_ATLAS_EN_2.pdf

Financing heat resilience
How governments can finance heat resilience through risk-informed investments, innovative financing mechanisms, and resilient infrastructure.
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), Centre for Disaster Protection, National Disaster Management Authority (India)
https://www.undrr.org/publication/documents-and-publications/financing-heat-resilience

Heat Action Plans in Local Government Practice (in German)
Implementation of the recommendations for drawing up heat action plans in local government practice (Plan°C)
German Institute for Urban Studies (Difu)
https://repository.difu.de/items/c805c6fb-c3c1-4288-b1c9-eff356fb04bd

Smart Sponge Cities and Modern Heavy Rainfall Management (in German)
Ideas on how cities can further strengthen their climate and risk resilience and protect themselves against both heavy rainfall events and droughts
German Association of Cities
https://www.staedtetag.de/positionen/positionspapiere/2026/diskussionspapier-smarte-schwammstadt-modernes-starkregenmanagement

Involvement of civil society actors on both sides is crucial

Posted on by erik

Yarinacocha is located in the Ucayali region of the Peruvian Amazon. The city of around 100,000 inhabitants is close to the regional capital Pucallpa. 26% of Yarinacocha’s population live in poverty, 3.6% in extreme poverty. A large proportion of the urban population has no access to clean drinking water. All the district’s wastewater is discharged into the Ucayali River and the Yarinacocha Lagoon untreated. This has a negative impact on the environment, health, tourism, and economic development in the region.

To meet the increasing challenges of climate protection and climate change adaptation, the Yarinacocha district administration has developed an action program in collaboration with their German Partner City Cologne. This program includes the planning and implementation of improvement measures in areas such as the provision of municipal, climate and environmentally relevant basic services, the use of renewable energies, the preservation of biodiversity and local economic development through value chains. The district administration is working on building appropriate planning and project management capacities in the administration and establishing mechanisms to increase the participation of relevant interest groups from civil society, in particular indigenous actors, and universities, in local planning and decision-making processes. To support these objectives, an expert is supporting the district administration and the climate partnership between Yarinacocha and Cologne in the framework of the program “Experts fund for Municipal Partnerships Wordwide”, which is implemented by GIZ and SKEW.

In this good practice partnership-based cooperation with indigenous communities and their organizations as well as the commitment of political decision-makers are important success factors, e.g. to set up a center for indigenous medicine in Yarinacocha or to implement projects benefitting the indigenous population in the areas of local governance, biodiversity, and autonomous indigenous energy supply.

Brescia – Darmstadt: Together against the pandemic

Posted on by erik

Northern Italy was particularly hard hit by the pandemic at the beginning. In the face of this deadly threat, Darmstadt supported and prepared for the pandemic with rapid, unbureaucratic aid. The exchange between the hospitals, civil protection units and fire brigades of Brescia and Darmstadt was very important for Darmstadt in this respect. The close cooperation during the pandemic further deepened the partnership – for its outstanding achievements and peaceful, people-uniting cooperation, the partnership was awarded the municipal science prize of the Carl and Anneliese Goerdeler Foundation.

See here how both cities went through the crisis together and benefit from their experiences!

German, Italian and English subtitles available.

Watch video at YouTube:

https://youtu.be/YUHsmKb5Omk

With pony and corgis humorously through the crisis

Posted on by erik

With Corona, there was also a crisis in public transport in the German capital Berlin: passenger numbers fell by 70% – the BVG met the communication challenge with humour. Passengers and employees were to be convinced that safe bus and train travel was possible under consideration of the Corona rules.                                                                  

Digitalisation for efficient integrated risk management

Posted on by erik

Gütersloh is a city in North-Western Germany with a population of more than 100,000 people. It was essential for the city to develop lean technology solutions to deal with the uncertainty from the COVID-19 pandemic, to efficiently control the spread of the virus and ensure the protection of the people.

A field hospital for COVID-19 patients in Al-Bireh

Posted on by erik

The idea of establishing a field hospital began after the Red Crescent presented an initiative of cooperation with Al-Bireh municipality, in response to the increasing number of cases and deaths caused by COVID-19, as well as tOverburdening of the government medical centres in the city at the level of Ramallah and Al-Bireh governorate to meet the large demand for medical services. Out of a sense of social and humanitarian responsibility of the municipality and its constant effort to provide good services to its citizens in various fields, including public health. Ways of cooperation between the Palestinian Red Crescent Society and the municipality were studied, and it was agreed that the municipality would establish a field hospital, provided that cooperation from the Red Crescent crews would take place to manage and operate the hospital and provide medical equipment and medical staff for that, as well as cooperation with the Ministry of Health in order to ensure the transfer the patients according to the infection level.

After the field study, the halls of Al-Bireh Park were chosen to be the headquarters for the field hospital establishment. The first phase included preparing and equipping the first floor with an area of 670 square meters as a hospital and part of the lower ground floor as a medical laboratory for the hospital. If needed, the hospital is expanded and the number of beds increased.

Predicting changes in waste volumes due to Covid-19

Posted on by erik

The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly altered economic activities and people’s lifestyles. These changes also have a great impact on industrial, commercial and private waste volumes. It is important for municipal waste management companies to estimate changes in quantities and thus the utilisation of their facilities as early as possible.