About CoSynHealth
Background
The health aspect is often overlooked in carbon-neutral city scenarios because they mainly focus on climate change mitigation measures to reduce CO2 emissions. For example, changes in urban structure to promote new mobility patterns or the promotion of low-carbon lifestyles can impact health by altering exposure to environmental stressors such as heat stress. At the same time, urban planners and public health officials are trying to develop climate adaptation measures to reduce health risks for urban residents. However, sustainable urban development requires a combination of climate mitigation and climate adaptation, as the climate will continue to change regardless of global efforts to reduce CO2 emissions.
Aims
The CoSynHealth project bridges the existing gaps between climate mitigation and climate adaptation research. To this end, it is investigating how to resolve trade-offs between carbon neutrality scenarios and healthy city scenarios, as well as how to maximise synergies between the scenarios. Climate services will be developed together with the relevant stakeholders in order to use them in an innovative participatory process to develop sustainable scenarios for cities that focus on the health of the population.
Methods
The climate services will be based on an urban systems approach. This takes into account complex interactions between urban health, urban climate, built environment, urban society, and urban citizens, as well as projected climatic and demographic changes. In particular, results from a high-resolution urban climate model and an agent-based model are integrated to determine future exposure to heat stress. Subsequently, the impact of climate mitigation and adaptation measures on potential health outcomes will be assessed at the neighbourhood level.