Last week, the City of Differdange and the municipal syndicate PRO-SUD – two of the three Luxembourg participants in the Interreg project “Cool Neighbourhoods” – took part in the partners’ meeting in Middelburg, in the Dutch province of Zeeland.

Over two days, representatives of all 13 partners, who are implementing 9 pilot projects on climate-change adaptation in cities in Luxembourg, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, met to exchange updates on the progress of each pilot project. In addition, participants were brought up to date on the latest developments related to the project’s scientific accompanying programmes.

Training and monitoring

Two of these programmes were a particular focus of the presentations. The training courses on urban heat islands and heat stress, being prepared by the Province of Antwerp, were discussed. It was noted that the nearly completed training modules will be tested by the project partners in the coming weeks, and that the full trainings will be offered next autumn in all pilot regions. The aim is to familiarise municipal technical staff and local policymakers with the topic so they can develop concrete adaptation strategies in their municipalities.

The other scientific accompanying programme on the agenda in Middelburg was temperature monitoring, which has been set up around the 9 pilot sites. Measurement data from last summer were presented. These illustrate that even small or medium-sized cities can register temperatures up to 5 degrees higher during heatwaves than the rural surroundings of these built-up areas.

© Minett UNESCO Biosphere

Joint mid-term conference with partner project

The second day of the “Cool Neighbourhoods” partners’ meeting was dedicated to exchanges with members of the “Cool Cities” programme. While the first project – also involving Luxembourg partners – focuses on climate adaptation in urban neighbourhoods, the “Cool Cities” project, funded through the Interreg North Sea Programme, is concerned with developing climate-adaptation strategies for entire cities.

On the morning of the second day, an extended site visit to Middelburg’s climate-adaptation measures was scheduled. The capital of Zeeland has been strongly engaged on this topic for years.

At the joint mid-term conference of the two projects, possible synergies between cool neighbourhoods and cool cities were discussed. The heads of the two funding Interreg programmes, “North-West Europe” and “North Sea”, emphasised that such collaborations across programme boundaries can increase the reach of the different projects and are fully supported by the pan-European Interreg programme.

Afterwards, keynote speakers—such as Dutch climate scientist Tim van Hattum—used concrete examples to show how we as a society can prepare for the consequences of the expected rise in temperatures.

The next meeting of the “Cool Neighbourhoods” partners is planned for early summer, focusing in particular on the practical completion of the pilot projects in the 9 participating cities.