Modelling the socio-spatial impact of regional planning and climate change prevention strategies on land consumption in Western Germany 1985-2030

Abstract

Growing metropolitan areas have potential to affect the climate of local neighborhoods and thus become a hot topic in regional planning. The study is a contribution to the climate change related land cover simulation efforts in Germany. It investigates future land consumption rates and population growth rates keeping goal 11 of the United Nation’s sustainable development goals (SDG) in the view. Secondly, the results are embedded in the sociological field of environmental justice, also dealing with SDG 3 and 11 by analyzing the socio-economic statuses in certain areas of distinct conditions. It analyzes the spatial impact of planning policies in regard to land use planning and official climate change prevention strategies in Western Germany. Scenario-based urban growth simulation model (SUSM) is used to simulate the future land use and cover of 2030 based on land use and cover maps of the years 1985, 2005, 2010, and 2017 derived by classified Landsat data. Two scenarios namely planned and unplanned were implemented to assess future land consumption 2030; the impacts of future urban growth with the projection of land consumption rate (LCR), population growth rate (PGR), and LCRPGR index on municipality level; and the impact on regions vulnerable to climate change. The comparison of simulated urban growth to observed urban growth from 2005-2017 shows that the producer accuracy of SUSM for the historic scenario is 68% with an overall accuracy of 97%, a Matthews correlation coefficient of 0.66, a figure of merit of 0.51 and area under curve of 0.84, all of which indicating good model performance. The total quantity of new urban areas of our SUSM simulation 2030 was approximately 283 km². Our results show that LCRPGR is negative in most municipalities reflecting opposing trends of population and land consumption development. Using Landsat data, the average summer land surface temperatures (LST) were estimated and trends for 1985-2020 calculated. Citizens depicted areas within zones with thermal compensation function in the city of Bonn. All areas have experienced an increase of summer LST of 3-5°C. About 33% of new urban areas in our region of interest can be found in these zones in the planning scenario and about 26% in the scenario without planning information in SUSM model. In addition, the study reveals socio-demographic patterns in context with past LST developments and future urban densification and sprawl processes. The presentation will show how socio-economic clusters are detected across spatials scales based on qualitative indications. Those findings may help to categorize certain city districts in terms of their residential composition and plan accordingly.