How do you make a neighborhood not only climate-resilient, but also healthier and more livable? Jonathan van Ekris, advisor in Climate Adaptation & Urban Water at BOOT, deals with this question on a daily basis. In practice, he sees that climate adaptation is still too often reduced to just flooding, whereas an integrated approach is precisely what offers opportunities in terms of heat, greenery, health, and biodiversity. “Climate adaptation is actually the perfect framework to design a neighborhood holistically.”
Healthy area development
Climate adaptation is now high on the agenda of many municipalities. What do you see happening in practice when it comes to making residential areas climate-resilient?
“It is indeed correct that more and more municipalities are actively committed to making existing and new residential areas climate-resilient. Larger municipalities generally have their policies and ambitions well in order and have a clear picture of which neighborhoods need to be addressed. Many smaller municipalities still lack the necessary insights into the effects of climate change on the living environment and the policy to do something about it. Apart from policy and insight, we often see in practice that climate adaptation is still reduced to solving flooding issues. That is a shame, because climate adaptation is precisely the ideal framework to design a neighborhood integrally. Topics such as heat stress, biodiversity, energy, and health offer great opportunities for synergy.”
“We are convinced that a neighborhood must not only be climate-adaptive, but also healthy, for residents as well as plants and animals. That is why we focus on an integrated neighborhood approach, where in the inventory phase we look not only at where water accumulates on the street, but also at who lives in an area, what the quality of the green space is like, and how hot it can get. This also requires a broader and bolder perspective from the municipality. Tygron is an important tool in this regard to bring data together and perform integrated calculations on the added value of measures.”
Urban heat is a problem that we are understanding increasingly well. But when does insight into heat stress actually become an incentive to change something?
“Sleepless nights due to heat and, unfortunately, also premature deaths as a result of extreme heat can be reasons to place heat stress higher on the agenda. In recent years, heat protocols have therefore been springing up like mushrooms. This is of course a good development, because it provides a clear framework for action to protect vulnerable people. However, this must not come at the expense of the primary measure: preventing and reducing heat in the city. Heat stress measures cost space and money and often require extra maintenance. In addition, they regularly come at the expense of the already scarce parking space.”
“By involving residents and managers in the current situation and making the benefits of, for example, a few extra trees transparent, you can quickly bypass the debate on whether a measure is needed. Subsequently, you can search for solutions together, for example by relocating a parking space a bit further away. In Tygron, we therefore work with clear heat indicators and labels that show live what the effect of a tree or green space instead of pavement is within a street or area.”
At BOOT, you are working on a standard approach to make neighborhoods more heat-resilient, using Tygron. What does this approach look like and what makes it interesting for other municipalities?
“A standard approach might be putting it a bit too simply. Together with our knowledge partners, we strive for a customized approach for every neighborhood, drafted according to a standard integrated evaluation framework and menu of choices. The first step, the inventory, is therefore always carried out across all themes: green space, health, heat, water, and energy. We process these results in Tygron. Using various indicators, we show what the current situation looks like. Subsequently, we work together with the municipality to see where tasks converge and which specific challenges exist within a neighborhood.”
“The municipality then chooses which form of development is desired: an integrated neighborhood structure plan or an integrated neighborhood design. In doing so, it also determines what form of participation is appropriate. This allows us to advise much better on, for example, the layout of green, cool zones. Should such a place serve as a meeting space, or rather as a location for sports and games? And is it easily accessible for all residents? With dashboards linked via Tygron's API, municipalities and residents can monitor the current status of a neighborhood and the effects of different measure packages throughout the process. We use this information during decision-making and participation moments.”
What changes when you not only show a municipality where the problems lie, but can also try out different solutions and scenarios in a digital environment?
“The major advantage of Tygron is that you can provide immediate insight into the usefulness and necessity of a measure even at the sketch stage. For example, discussion often arises about how many trees are needed in a street. Are two trees enough, or do we actually need ten? Often, a limited number of trees is ultimately chosen, if at all. Then the debate on parking begins, because five trees often mean five fewer parking spaces. When you can show beforehand that at least three trees are needed to achieve a common goal, you bypass the discussion on whether a measure is needed. With Tygron, that is possible.”
“We use this a lot during multidisciplinary sessions with municipalities. The discussion is then no longer about the necessity of a tree, but about how to find alternative space for parking together. The same applies to other themes such as flooding, biodiversity, and health. If you can show what is minimally required to achieve a certain goal, you can quickly move to concrete implementation. By setting up multiple scenarios in Tygron, for example a green scenario, a water-robust scenario, or a healthy scenario, you quickly make transparent what different measures yield.”
“This also helps to involve, for instance, a sewer manager in themes like health. If you can demonstrate that a rain garden, green parking, or a planted bioswale offers added value compared to a stormwater sewer, despite higher installation and maintenance costs, it becomes easier to build support. In the end, he is often the one who has to justify the investment. In addition, Tygron helps to show that deviating slightly from the standard can often already yield a lot of benefits. For example, by making a footpath slightly narrower so that a hedge fits next to it.”
You are also interested in developments around AI. Where do you think AI can make a difference in the field in the coming years? And what does that mean for the role of professionals?
“I do not believe AI will completely take over the role of professionals within our field. A large part of my work consists of providing customized advice based on conversations with municipalities and residents and finding creative solutions to complex challenges. In addition, a certain degree of political sensitivity plays a role in almost every project. Plans and designs often have to be approved by the municipal council or align with a political direction that needs to be translated into concrete measures. These are things that are still difficult for AI to fully understand and weigh.”
“AI does allow me as a professional to expand my knowledge on various themes more quickly and to develop tools and results that contribute to a better transfer of advice. It helps to reduce large amounts of information and diverse themes to understandable indicators and to establish connections between different challenges. It can also support in detecting and resolving errors. At the same time, you must always be aware of the limitations of AI, such as hasty conclusions, hallucinations, and non-existent sources. So, AI can certainly help in the professional role, but you must possess solid professional knowledge and a critical eye to assess whether AI-generated advice actually makes sense. This applies to advice you draft yourself as well as advice from others that you need to work with.”
Contact info:
Jonathan van Ekris, Climate Adaptation & Urban Water Advisor at BOOT
