CESARClimate and Environmental change and Sustainable Accessibility of the

Randstad

DBR February 2012

Prof. Martin Dijst

Faculty of Geosciences

Utrecht University

CESAR in a nutshell

Challenge 1

Challenge 2

Progress challenge 1

• Systematic and comprehensive review of literature

• Incomplete and fragmented

Progress challenge 1

continued

• Overall: increased attractivensess of cycling and decrease of the car

• Winter(milder and wetter): growth in use of cycling and walking

• Summer (hotter, dryer and extreme precipitation): more car and less use of active modes

• Sholder seasons: contrasting results

Progress challenge 1

continued

• What is more important for urban heat island effect?:

• Long wave trapping• Short wave shadow effects

• Based on collected data in Rotterdam and Weather Research and Forecast model (WRF)

• Effects depend on season:• Winter: only long wave trapping

due to lack of incoming solar radation

• Summer: both processes

Progress challenge 2

• Developing and testing multidimensional framework

• Aims of PSS• Improving planning process• Improving outcomes

• Experimental tests of Urban Strategy (US)

• Preliminary results• In its current form US contributes

little to the quality of the process and outcomes

• Scale and level of detail not well tuned to the demands of land use and transport strategy makers

• Kind of indicators not well-suited for kind of questions

Policy relevance

• Impact of microclimate on local environmental quality

• Impact of microclimate on sustainable transport modes

• Impacts on sustainable accessibility• Integration of microclimate effects in

PSS

Prospects challenge 1

• Fieldwork to analyse interaction weather conditions, individual experiences and mobility

• Modelling morphology of cities and urban climate

Prospects challenge 2

• Experimental testing specific strategies to improve quality of processes and outcomes of PSS

• Analysis of meaning of PSS at various spatial scales and for exchange of knowledge between various type of actors