Integration of Climatology in Urban Design and Planning—Examples from Sweden

It is a well established fact that the urban landscape creates a climate which influences, for example, human comfort, air quality and energy consumption. During the last century researchers have gathered a huge amount of data on urban climate and knowledge about the urban climate is, today, relatively good. Guidelines and tools for urban planning have been developed but in spite of this knowledge, it has been recognised that climate issues often have low impact on the urban planning process in practice. The reason for this lack of influence is an important question for which answers must be sought among climatologists, planners and the planning process. This paper presents the results from a study with the main objective to investigate if, how and when knowledge about the climate is used in the Swedish urban planning process. The research strategy was developed in an interdisciplinary research group involving climatologists and planners. Case studies involving different interview techniques and historical data were carried out by different actors involved in urban planning at the municipality level in three cities in Sweden. The study showed that urban planners were interested in climatic aspects but the use of climatic information was unsystematic and the results confirmed that climatology has a low impact on the planning process. The low impact is a result of several constraints which could be related to five explanatory variables i.e. conceptual and knowledge based, technical, policy, organisational and the market. An example of the outcome of a specific project (a new development of a housing district on a former shipbuilding yard) where climatologists were involved from the very beginning is given and the discussion part of the paper presents some key conclusions which adress the constraints. The conclusion is that it is important that urban climatologists meet the planners demand-driven needs by constantly providing them with good arguments, suitable methods and tools. Urban climatologists are also encouraged to improve the awareness of the importance of urban climate not only among planners but also among decision-makers and the public.