Research for more heat protection: Ihringen is a pilot municipality
Freiburg, 31/10/2024
The PROLOK project and the municipality of Ihringen are jointly exploring new ways of protecting small communities from heatwaves. PROLOK is a project of the Sustainability Innovation Campus, a joint initiative of the University of Freiburg and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), funded by the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and Arts.
Climate change is leading to an increasing number of hot days, particularly in the Upper Rhine region, and is thus affecting the everyday life, quality of life and health of the population. The PROLOK project (“Prozessschema für lokalspezifische Hitzeanpassung in kleinen Kommunen” – process scheme for site-specific heat adaptation in small municipalities) is now set to explore ways in which small municipalities can better protect themselves from heatwaves. To this end, the project will work together with the municipality of Ihringen at the Kaiserstuhl, which is one of the heat-related hotspots in Germany.
The PROLOK project is part of the state’s Sustainability Innovation Campus (ICN). The University of Freiburg and the South German Climate Office at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) are responsible for the scientific management of the project. The Regionalverband Südlicher Oberrhein (Regional Association of the Southern Upper Rhine) and the consultancy Klima Plus are the project’s field partners.
The pilot municipality of Ihringen is particularly affected by heatwaves
The call for tenders for the pilot municipality was issued in June 2024 by the Regionalverband Südlicher Oberrhein together with the University of Freiburg, the KIT and Klima Plus. It was aimed at municipalities with 5,000 to 20,000 inhabitants that are severely affected by heat. Among the three applicant municipalities that met the formal criteria, the project partners selected the municipality of Ihringen as a pilot partner. Prof. Dr Hartmut Fünfgeld, professor of Geography of Global Change at the University of Freiburg and co-project manager of PROLOK, explains the decision: “Ihringen is already considered one of the heat-related hotspots in Germany and will be affected by heatwaves more frequently and more intensely in the future. As a small community with around 6,300 inhabitants, it is excellently suited for the project’s objectives. The project results can then be applied to other communities.”
“We want to make climate research applicable: With the results of the regional climate models used at the KIT, we can support local stakeholders in specific issues, such as the heat in Ihringen,” says Dr Hans Schipper, co-head of PROLOK, who heads the South German Climate Office at the KIT.
“The health and well-being of our residents, especially the very young and the very old, are particularly important to us,” emphasises Benedikt Eckerle, mayor of the municipality of Ihringen. “Participating in the PROLOK project offers us the opportunity to work with our citizens and local stakeholders to develop tailored solutions to combat the increasing heat and thus ensure the long-term quality of life in our community.”
Develop applicable heat protection concepts
The aim of the PROLOK project is to develop a process scheme that enables smaller municipalities to deal with heat hazards in a preventive and innovative way despite limited financial and human resources. The developed process scheme is to be tested together with the pilot municipality of Ihringen in the period from October 2024 to March 2025 in the context of two stakeholder workshops and further developed based on experiences with the process. The first workshop will take place in Ihringen on 21 November 2024.
“The Sustainability Innovation Campus addresses the major challenges of our time – from climate protection and resource conservation to future urban planning. The Upper Rhine region is to become a beacon of sustainability research through leaps in innovation. At the same time, projects such as PROLOK have the potential to improve people’s lives in a very practical way. For example, heat protection concepts are being developed in the pilot municipality of Ihringen that can be applied elsewhere. This application-oriented research advances us on the path to a more sustainable society,” says Minister of Science Petra Olschowski about the development of the Innovation Campus model.
The Sustainability Innovation Campus
PROLOK is one of six projects that have been funded by the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and Arts since 2024 as part of the Sustainability Innovation Campus (ICN), a joint initiative of the University of Freiburg and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). As the youngest Innovation Campus, the ICN has received start-up funding of over one million euros from the Ministry of Science. Under the motto “Transformations for the urban regions of the future – climate protection, resource conservation and well-being,” researchers and industry partners are working together to solve real-world challenges and thus contribute to the sustainable development of society, taking into account economic and ecological aspects, the common good and social justice.