Saarland Regional Report - C-Change

C-CHANGE REGIONAL REPORT
2009 - 2012
Saarland Spatial Planning Department
Ministry of Interior and Sport

Climate change will lead to lasting spatial impacts. We are hence obliged to increasingly apply preventive mitigation
measures, whilst turning our attention to adapting to those consequences of advancing climate change which are
already foreseeable today. An increasing number of hot and dry periods, heavy rains and floods corroborate the need
for action, also in Saarland. The EU-project C-Change provided the Saarland partners with an opportunity for reviewing
current planning and development programmes on a state, regional and municipal level in order to improve the
integration of climate mitigation and adaptation measures (Action 20). Besides these planning approaches, a climate
path (Action 14 and Investment 5) has been realised aiming at sensitizing people to climate change and its
repercussions.
Saarland regional partner is the Spatial Planning Department within the Saarland Ministry for Interior and Sport. Other
project partners are the Saarbrücken Authority for Green Spaces, Forestry and Agriculture and the Saarland Department
for Sustainable Development within the Saarland Ministry of the Environment and Consumer Protection. The project is
managed by agl | Hartz • Saad • Wendl.
Saarland Climate proof Spatial
Planning
1. Project Description
In the Saarland, current plans and development
programmes on a state-wide, regional and urban level
are being examined in terms of how they can
contribute to mitigation and adaptation strategies. Within
the framework of the C-Change project the Saarland
State Development Plan, the action programme for the
“Northern Landscape of Industrial Culture” as well as
the Saarbrücken Open Space Development Programme
stood in the centre of consideration:
• The Saarland State Development Plan coordinates
the various space utilisation demands of modern society.
It is presently being redrafted in order to address current
challenges entailed by changes in the economic
structure and demographics, as well as the energyrelated
reorientation. With the C-Change project the
spatial planning avails itself of the opportunity for
elaborating conceptual proposals for handling climate
change from a spatial planning perspective as part
of this re-draft.
• For the Northern Landscape of Industrial Culture
(NLIC) – a part of the Saar agglomeration characterised
by the decline of the steel industry and coal mining and
by a heavily shrinking population – an intermunicipal
action programme has been elaborated jointly with the
local stakeholders. This pilot project "Landscape and
Climate Change" demonstrates by way of example,
which concrete measures can be implemented on a
sub-regional or local level for mitigation and adaptation.
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• The state capital Saarbrücken is one of nine model
cities taking part in the German Experimental Housing
and Urban Development programme on urban strategies
tackling the impacts of climate change - www.stadtund-klimawandel.de
- ExWoSt. Starting from the
Saarbrücken Open Space Development Programme
(OSDP), the climatic relevance of open spaces is being
examined with the aim of demonstrating how open
spaces can help cities improve their adaptation to the
consequences of climate change. The fundamentals and
strategies for this have been developed as part of the
C-Change project. Building on this, a broad involvement
process has been started in order to sensitise the
population for this subject and jointly explore definitive
action options.
All regional projects have been presented to a broader
audience and local stakeholders at the Regional Park
Forum. It took place on the 28th March 2012 in
Saarbrücken and was dedicated to the topic of climate
change.
2. Key Outputs, Activities and
Achievements
The C-Change project provided an excellent opportunity
to elaborate conceptual proposals for adequately
addressing adaptation strategies in the redraft of the
formal and binding Saarland State Development Plan.
Several workshops and bilateral coordination meetings
with the various sector departments on state level
ensured that sectoral as well as regionally specific
requirements found intensive consideration. The main
results were compiled within the final reports:
• The first step was made by evaluating regional climate
models to track climate change and its impact. This
leads to a broader understanding of the complex and
spatially relevant climate change consequences on
regional level. The results indicate that summertime heat
stress in the Saarland will show an above average
increase in comparison with Germany as a whole.
Declining summer precipitations in combination with
rising summer temperatures may furthermore lead to
more frequent and/or longer dry periods. As heavy
precipitations are on the increase nationwide, the
frequency of flooding events and risk of soil erosion may
also increase in connection with rising precipitation
volumes in winter.
• The second step focused on the analyses of the
vulnerability of land uses and structures regarding
thermal stress, dry periods and flood risks. The results
show that urban areas and the soil, in particular, show
a high vulnerability, but also agriculture and the nature
conservation areas. It became clear that the cold air
supply of the densely settled areas is of key importance.
For this reason C-Change also included an analysis of
climate-active areas and cold air outflow routes
throughout the Saarland, which will need to be further
concretised in both the state development planning and
the local planning.
• Exploring adaptation capacities is a major step when
it comes to concrete planning and realisation of
measures. Adaptation potentials regarding the heat
stress in urban environments are for example provided
by the development of a system of interconnected urban
green spaces, an optimisation of air exchange processes
between the city centre and surrounding areas, and in
the linkage of nearby recreational spaces with a bioclimatic
and air hygiene welfare function. Adaptation
potentials regarding an increased number of flooding
events are most of all provided in the fields of land use
and building precautions and risk management, and by
an active promotion of risk awareness.
• Considering the binding character of the Saarland
State Development Plan, it has been necessary to
provide suggestions for integrating the topic of climate
change and adaptation into the formal state planning,
and in particular for designing and further developing the
formal planning tools of state development planning. The
investigation proved e.g. the importance to determinate
green corridors especially throughout the Saar
agglomeration. The results will be directly included
in the planning processing to follow.
Sensitivity of municipalities regarding heat stress
(source: HHP / JRU 2011)
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C-Change also involved the implementation of a
“Landscape and Climate Change“ pilot project by the
Spatial Planning Department in the Northern Landscape
of Industrial Culture (NLIC). Two joint workshops with
local actors led to a set of adaptation as well as
mitigation measures for the sub-region. The measures
focus on nature and landscape, not least of all because
NLIC is the location of Germany’s very first federal largescale
nature conservation project to be implemented in
an urban-industrial area. Of particular importance here
are the involvement of local potentials and activities,
ensuring coordination with the large-scale nature
conservation project, and the development of initial ideas
for projects and measures. The project ended up with
an intermunicipal action programme.
Within the C-Change project Saarbrücken puts an
emphasis on the climatic relevance of open spaces.
Open spaces are of particular importance for the urban
climate and more accessible for adaptation measures
than urban architectural structures. A starting point
is provided by the Saarbrücken Open Space
Development Programme (OSDP), which has
established itself as a successful instrument of open
space policy since 2008. However, the spatial impacts
of climate change have not been integrated so far. On
this basis Saarbrücken participates in the German
Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs
and Spatial Development (BBSR) research programme
“Experimental Housing and Urban Development“
(ExWoSt) dealing with “Urban Strategies Towards
Climate Change”. The programme serves to examine
how cities across the nation can prepare for the
consequences of climate change. Saarbrücken is one of
nine model cities. The C-Change project provided a first
stimulus for offensively integrating mitigation and in
particular climate adaptation strategies in the Open
Space Development Programme, but also important
stimuli for an urban development which adequately
addresses climate change.
There were three main aspects pursued in the context of
the OSDP:
• Building on a vulnerability analysis for the overall city
and a well-founded assessment of the climatic relevance
of various types of open space, adaptation strategies
and options have been elaborated for the planning of
urban open spaces. That was the contribution of
C-Change. On this basis, concrete measures have been
developed in two urban districts as part of the ExWoSt
pilot project.
TITLE: Vulnerability of settlement areas in Saarbrücken
regarding heat stress (source: agl 2012)
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The district forum on the urban heat island effect in Alt-Saarbrücken (source: agl 2012)
• Where dealing with heavy rain is concerned, the
district of Rußhütte was selected, where flooding events
with partly catastrophic repercussions for the residents
have already occurred in the past. Two citizens‘ events
have already taken place here. Definitive adaptation
measures for private and public spaces as well as
necessary improvements in the risk management were
discussed with local residents and those responsible in
the municipal authorities and waste disposal companies,
the Meteorological Service and the fire brigade. The
dialogue continues, and first measures have already
been implemented.
• The adaptation to increasing thermal stress has been
elaborated using the district of Alt-Saarbrücken as an
example. This district features a broad range of areas,
from low to high stress, as well as a heterogeneous
structure of open spaces and settlements. Both public
and private open spaces provide starting points for
adaptation measures. Two large-scale urban
development projects where the consequences of
climate change should find consideration in the planning
are located within the district: the “New Urban Centre
by the River” and the new residential area of
Franzenbrunnen. The project has been actively
supported by a committed citizens‘ district forum. Within
the ExWoSt programme innovative forms of participation
have been explored: a guided city walk through
Alt-Saarbrücken put on stage the impacts of increasing
thermal load.
Important institutions have been involved in the overall
process right from the start: the Spatial Planning
Department of the Saarland, the regional planning
association of Saarbrücken, various municipal authorities
and companies, but also private protagonists such as
RAG Montan Immobilien GmbH. The focus was on
exploring their action potentials for adaptation measures,
and hence initiating a broad governance process for
mitigation and adaptation.
The guided city walk through Alt-Saarbrücken put on stage the impacts of increasing thermal load
(source: Dirk Michler 2012)
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3. Objectives Addressed
The main questions addresed were:
• How can regions and cities adapt to the
consequences of climate change
• What role do open spaces play when it comes to
adaptation
• What can be done in the urban and regional planning
to further mitigation and adaptation measures
• How can we interlink the different planning levels in
order to coordinate adaptation and mitigation strategies
• Is it necessary to readjust existing planning tools and
processes
• How can local stakeholders be actively involved into
current planning processes as well as in the actual
implementation of measures
4. Results and Conclusions
In the Saarland, C-Change involves the pursuit of
integrated spatial planning approaches designed to
incorporate the cross-sectional theme of climate change
in various levels of spatial planning – from the state
planning via the activities in the regional planning
association of Saarbrücken and inter-municipal action
programmes through to the planning of urban open
spaces – and network them intensively. Climate change
is hence not, as is so often the case, processed
independently of current planning processes, but instead
embedded in them. Only this way can possible target
conflicts between, for example, the expansion of
regenerative energy and climate adaptation measures,
or also between the concepts of compact vs. climateadapted
city.
The C-Change project in Saarbrücken but also the
results at state level furthermore demonstrate the central
importance of open spaces for climate change-proof
urban development, and elaborate concrete proposals
for securing and/or upgrading climate-relevant open
spaces. The results of Saarbrücken within the framework
of the ExWoSt research programme are systematised
and can also be applied in other cities.
The C-Change projects additionally show which basic
data are meaningful and required for urban strategies
addressing climate change and how necessary it is to
integrate new approaches such as vulnerability analyses
into spatial planning procedures. The readjustment of
existing planning tools and processes is necessary. That
means existing spatial planning procedures need to be
adjusted correspondingly to the challenges related to
climate change. The answers for the design of the
planning tools are meant to provide models for an
effective approach to the subject of climate change,
whilst bridging the gap to the actual implementation
of measures.
The dialogue at local level proved how important
communication and participation strategies are as the
necessity of adaptation is hardly perceived by most local
actors – in contrast to the importance of climate
protection and the development of renewable energies.
Within the context of the city of Saarbrücken’s open
space project, broad citizens‘ involvement – regarding
„heavy rains“ in the sense of a risk governance
approach, and regarding thermal stress as a broadly
designed discussion process – showed how important
tailor-made concepts of participation processes are.
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Regional Park Forum 2012 on Climate Change
(source: Dirk Michler)

Climate Change Urban Landscape
Labs: The Climate Path
1. Project Description
At the beginning of the search for new and creative ways
to foster the understanding of climate change and its
impacts the project partnership agreed on the concept
of a Climate Path. It was decided to cooperate with the
Saarland art college HBK in Saarbrücken in order to
involve young people and get innovative ideas how to
realise the project.
In 2010, an excursion had led the Tour d’énergie project
group as well as a number of students from the Saarland
art college HBK in Saarbrücken, and the C-Change
project group “Climate Route Offenbach“ to the Climate
House in Bremerhaven. This visit brought first
impressions and initiated the exchange between the two
projects. In a Climate Change Urban Landscape Lab
seminar at the HBK college the group of students then
brainstormed possible designs for individual stations
within the climate path. They provided inspirations and
ideas for addressing people in a targeted manner and
awoke their interest over and beyond handed-down
methods. Eleven presentations highlighted diverse
aspects of the subject matter. The installations
developed by the students appealed to the senses, and
some of them later came to be included in the concept
for the climate path in a modified form.
Of initial importance after the brainstorming stage was
the development of a clear profile for the climate path.
To this end the area in question, the Northern Landscape
of Industrial Culture, was once more subjected to an
intensive analysis. The Saarland understands itself as a
mining and industrial location, and traditionally also as an
energy-generating region. In the Northern Landscape of
Industrial Culture this tradition is still kept alive by the
industrial and mining heritage. At the same time the
development of regenerative energies is driven forward,
also in the former mining locations. In addition to this,
wood plays a central part in the richly forested Saarland
as the oldest source of energy. Climate change and the
energy turnaround are indivisibly linked: only if the
development of regenerative energies is successful can
mitigation be effectively implemented. The climate path
addresses this subject, which is also the reason why it
was given the name Tour d’énergie.
The climate change library (source: Dirk Michler)
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After the concept of the climate path was finalised and
introduced to the local stakeholders concerned, as well
as the special purpose association of the large-scale
nature conservation project, its stations were being set
up, including the attendant signage. In August 2011 the
site was toured by the Saarland’s Minister for the
Environment, Energy and Transport, Ms Simone Peter, as
well as representatives of the Neunkirchen district,
the municipalities concerned, and the special purpose
association. The Climate Path was completed in
February 2012 and handed over to the public at the 27th
March 2012 in the context of the Saarland Regional Park
Forum dedicated to the outcomes of the C-Change
project.
2. Key Outputs, Activities and
Achievements
The Climate Path is designed as a “Tour d’énergie” to
be experienced as a bicycle tour, preferable by electric
bicycles. It connects the former mining locations of
Reden and Göttelborn and thus two of the four
landscape labs of the large-scale nature conservation
project within the Northern Landscape of Industrial
a mountain, a forest and a sun section. While the
mountain and sun sections address the subjects of
energy generation and regenerative energy, the forest
section is dedicated to the forest and its function for
mitigation, for example as a CO2-reducer, and for
adaptation.
3. Objectives Addressed
The main questions addressed were:
• How can we communicate the very complex topic
of climate change in an appropriate manner addressing
different target groups
• How can we activate and motivate citizens to
contribute to mitigation and adaptation measures
4. Results and Conclusions
C-Change is about a sea change and thus about raising
awareness using strategies and projects to help climate
change being recognised as a key challenge to all of us.
Therefore, projects should very directly address the
public, in order to raise people‘s awareness of the
consequences of climate change, and to stimulate them
into taking action themselves. The message is: Everyone
can contribute! In this sense, the Climate Path served to
try out new forms of communication designed to make
the topic of „climate change“ accessible to a broader
public in an event-orientated manner without
„moralising“.
Opening of the Saarland Climate Path in March 2012
(source: Dirk Michler)
At various stations visitors can either directly download
information with their cellphones via QR code linked to
the climate path website, or look up the messages in the
printed brochure. The interventions as well as visual and
textual treatment of the subject matter have been
designed in a manner ensuring their suitability also
for children and adolescents from the age of 13.
Lessons learnt mainly refer to the involvement of local
actors and young people into the planning process in
terms of a “laboratory” as well as to the necessity to
communicate climate change related issues in a new
way. Much in keeping with C-Change, visitors of the
Climate Path can experience various aspects of climate
change from a very unusual perspective. This helps to
test new forms of communication for presenting a highly
complex subject to the population in an exciting and
event-filled manner.
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The Organisational Learning
C-Change initiated a broad governance process in the
Saarland and in Saarbrücken that brought important
stakeholders on board and involved them in a dialogue
on mitigation and adaptation strategies in spatial
development. The exchange improved the understanding
of climate change and its impacts. The joint work helped
to tap into the opportunities to cope with the challenges
of climate change provided by existing spatial planning
tools.
The Saarland projects were selected as case studies for
the work of the Expert Joint Planning Groups. They
therefore decisively contributed to the processing of the
C-Change themes, whilst the exchange with the experts
from partner regions helped to further qualify the regional
projects. On the Länder level, the results of the C-
Change project will be included in the formal and binding
Saarland State Development Plan. The action
programme is to be implemented in the Northern
Landscape of Industrial Culture via the municipalities,
the forestry department as well as the large scale nature
conservation project. In the city of Saarbrücken the
results will be integrated in the Open Space Development
Programme as well as the urban (district) development
programmes. The C-Change project’s direct link with
existing plans and processes helps ensure an effective
integration, and hence a positive impact on public
policies with regard to mitigation and adaptation
strategies.
C-Change Products in Saarland
• Interim Report on the Saarland C-Change projects
• Final Report on the Saarland C-Change projects
• Report on the analysis of cold air production areas
and cold air streams throughout the Saarland, University
of the Saarland University
• Reports on conceptual proposals for adaptation and
mitigation strategies within the framework of the
Saarland State Development Plan (2 reports and maps)
• Report on the „Landscape and Climate Change“ pilot
project within the Northern Landscape of Industrial
Culture
• Report on the Regional Park Forum
• Report on the integration of climate change and
adaptation strategies into the Saarbrücken Open Space
Development Programme
• Stations, signage and signboard of the Climate Path,
the Tour d’énergie
• Booklet about the Climate Path, the Tour d’énergie
• Map of the Climate Path, the Tour d’énergie
• Website on the Climate Path, the Tour d’énergie
aus
Richtung
Landsweiler
Richtung
Bahnhof
Alexander-von-Humboldt-Str.
100 m 250 m 500 m 750 m 1 km 1,5 km
2 km
aus Richtung
Bildstock
landsweiler-reden
göttelborn
Map of the Climate Path, the Tour d’énergie
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