Rainfall statistics are composed based on data gained by precipitation measurements and from climate models. These statistics are carried out for both periods in the past and the future. When analysing the time series, different trends can be seen in the measured data of the past and the model data for future periods. Influences on the statistically determined precipitation amounts caused by changes can be neglected for past periods. However, significant increases of the statistical precipitation amounts can be observed for the future. Here a pragmatic approach is presented, showing how to consider possible increases in the statistical precipitation amounts – due to the climate change signal – in the dimensioning of water management systems.
Managing the impacts of climate change is an important issue for sustainable urban planning. A large range of economic activities influence urban climate and are influenced by climate change itself. The impacts of climate change on power plants, manufacturing processes and business locations as well as adaptation options should be analysed to understand the vulnerability to climate change. The seriousness of the potential impacts of
climate change on enterprises requires new concepts and innovative products for flexible and robust adaptation options. The analysis of the impacts of climate change on enterprises and potential adaptation measures is the basis of the research framework of a “climate-focused economic development” within the networking and research project dynaklim. A differentiated vulnerability assessment enables us to define and identify strategies of adaptation in the means of organisational, marked-focused and technical developments.
The Protestant Hospital Service GmbH (eks) was founded in 1997. The catering service of the KS includes not only the delivery to hospitals, rehabilitation centers and senior citizens facilities, but also catering services for factory canteens, kindergartens and schools. The EKS has a total of 250 staff and prepares approximately 3500 meals per day in the cook-and-chill procedure. This permits it to de-link food preparation and food distribution, both spatially and chronologically. As a result of climate change, the availability and unquestioned quality of raw materials is ever more difficult to ensure. For these reasons, the KS is supplemented the existing concept of out-of-home catering with a new line of organically and regionally produced products.
The restaurant trade is increasingly facing delivery bottlenecks as a result of climate change, which may even cause interruptions of the production of food products. Due to reduced yields and at the same time increased resource requirements, cost pressures are rising. In order to face these challenges in a timely manner, the DEHOGA East Friesland & Weser-Ems District Association is developing climate adaptation strategies for the restaurant trade. In the present project, the effects of climate change are analyzed, and specific solution paths for the restaurant trade are developed and communicated within the DEHOGA District Association.
One of the important parts of the final conference of ‘nordwest2050’ has been the scientific exchange sessions in the House of Science and the Industryclub Bremen. Contributions were based upon a call for papers from October 2013. The scientific committee received almost 100 abstracts where 36 were chosen for oral presentations and 15 for poster presentations (see overview tables below).
Four main topics were discussed in parallel workshops:
• Analysing Impacts and Assessing Vulnerabilities
• Designing and Testing Solutions for Regional Climate Adaptation and Resilience
• Implementing Climate Adaptation and Paths to a Resilient Future
• Resilience for Business: Climate Adaptation Challenge and Strategies of Sectors and Companies
Rather than focusing on climate-protection measures, the Bremen Cargo Distribution Center (GVZ Bremen) has identified measures for adaptation to climate change. In 2011 and 2012 the Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics (ISL), together with the Bremen University of Applied Science, carried out a comprehensive empirical investigation of the effects of climate change on the logistics sector of the Metropolitan Region Bremen-Oldenburg in the Northwest. The results clearly show that the expected impacts of climate change could mean a new challenge, both for the GVZ and for individual companies at the Center.
Impacts of climate change on agriculture have been predominantly analyzed by using biophysical and crop specific model applications. Vulnerability assessments which identify the vulnerability of regions with their farming systems are urgently required, because agricultural adaptations to climate change are related to regional specifics, and therefore research has to consider the regional level. Therefore sector- and system-specific approaches have to be developed. This paper presents the methodology of a vulnerability assessment for organic farming systems in the Brandenburg Region, which considers regional-specific climatic impact, as well as the regional-specific adaptive capacity. In this region, the cultivation and management of legume-grass swards have a key position, especially the climate change impact on legume symbiotic nitrogen fixation and nitrogen mineralization. Adaptation strategies of crop production systems include reduced soil tillage, which plays an important role also in organic farming systems (reducing soil erosion, improving water infiltration, reducing evaporation and improving soil structure, control of N-dynamics) are developed and tested by means of an action research approach.