Semi-structured interviews have been conducted with urban planners and decision makers at three different urban districts in southern Sweden. The aim was to investigate if, how and when local climate knowledge is used in the urban planning process. The study, which was initiated and financially supported by the the Swedish Council for Building Research, are intended for both researchers and practitioner in order to increase the communication between them. Another purpose with the study was to find the best method to translate scientific knowledge into applicable models for urban planning.
The study method was developed in co-operation with researchers at the Department of Urban Planning and Design at the Chalmers University of Technology (CTH) in Göteborg, Sweden and at the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research (NIBR) in Oslo, Norway. The questions used were intended to reveal the following:
· the level of knowledge at the urban districts
· the motives and barriers for use of climate knowledge
· the methods of finding and using climate information
· the weight of climate in the planning process
· variations among different planning levels.
The three urban districts choosen for the study were Göteborg, Trollhättan and Tidaholm which have about 700 000, 55 000 and 13 000 inhabitants respectively. These different urban districts reflect the sizes of population centres found in southern Sweden.
The results showed that the level of climate knowledge is rather high at all three districts, but also that the use of the climate knowledge is unsystematic. The definition of "climate" in the study was wide, but almost all of the people questioned were aware of the importance of the sun and the wind. Some people had more knowledge than others and used, for example, information about cold air drainage in their work. The methods for finding and using climate information varied a lot from "rules of thumb" to softwares for solar calculations and local climate maps/energy indices. Most of the planners had found the climate information through "self studies" , internal seminars or courses at the University. The urban planners expressed a great demand for seminars, easily accessible literature but also a need for methods as for example models based on Geographical Information Systems.
The results, as well as the importance of the results for researchers in urban climatology (with a need for finding application of their scientific works), will be discussed at the conference.