Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PAUL (Pilot Application in Urban Landscapes - Towards integrated city observatories for greenhouse gases)
Berichtszeitraum: 2021-10-01 bis 2023-03-31
Cities are hotspots for greenhouse gas emissions and play an important role in reduction efforts. Observing and verifying greenhouse gas emissions from densely populated urban areas is essential. The EU-funded project PAUL (ICOS Cities) will develop and evaluate innovative greenhouse gas measurement technologies and observatories. Further a great emphasis is on integrating official representatives, citizen's, and policymakers from the 15 cities included in the project (three pilot cities and 12 associated).
The aim is to provide unique data sets feeding diverse models and scientific studies while testing the feasibility of modelling approaches in various areas. Moreover, the project will help cities execute their climate action goals by providing data on fossil fuel emissions from urban areas. To conduct pilot studies, three cities were chosen (Munich, Paris, and Zurich). For an increased impact, 12 other European cities are included in the city network, to provide feedback and further testbeds.
Ultimately the goal of the project is to gain knowledge of how to measure greenhouse gases in an urban environment, and how the data is used to mitigate the city's climate action plan and disseminate the results to the citizens. This should result in a blueprint for other European cities.
The aim is to provide unique data sets feeding diverse models and scientific studies while testing the feasibility of modelling approaches in various areas. Moreover, the project will help cities execute their climate action goals by providing data on fossil fuel emissions from urban areas. To conduct pilot studies, three cities were chosen (Munich, Paris, and Zurich). For an increased impact, 12 other European cities are included in the city network, to provide feedback and further testbeds.
Ultimately the goal of the project is to gain knowledge of how to measure greenhouse gases in an urban environment, and how the data is used to mitigate the city's climate action plan and disseminate the results to the citizens. This should result in a blueprint for other European cities.
In the first 18 months of the project the overarching goal was to setup the instruments to measure greenhouse gases within the three pilot cities. Measurements can’t be recovered, so it is paramount to setup the infrastructure in a timely manner for the project but more importantly to capture the growing season of the vegetation inside the city borders. Currently the data is cleaned, analysed and processed with existing data quality and quality assurance methods. Then the data is used to model greenhouse gas emissions inside the city. In addition, refined emission inventories with very high resolution, temporal and spatial, have been produced. This is very useful information for the policy makers and city representatives and is an important part of the model’s developed in the next phase of the project.
In parallel we have produced reports comparing policies, workshops to gauge what kind of services and tools are needed by the cities, what capabilities are available within our city network and how we can share lessons learned so far. Further a publicly available tool (plug-in for QGIS) was developed: An integrated tool capable of mapping future emissions based on city climate plans and urban development plans. This tool may help a city to create ‘scenarios’ for future city developments and emission mitigation plans.
Outreach and engagement took place in many different forms and activities. For example, we provided many posters and talks at the European Geoscience Union (EGU23) general assembly. Many of our partners presented the project to the broader scientific community as well as to the public. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) as another example shared information about PAUL with the WMO network (WMO Study Group on Integrated Urban Services and Steering Committee of the Integrated Global Greenhouse Gas Information System, IG3IS) to include the good practices that are being developed by PAUL to the IG3IS Urban Greenhouse Gas Emission Observation and Monitoring Good Research Practice Guidelines. This document is planned to be regularly.
In parallel we have produced reports comparing policies, workshops to gauge what kind of services and tools are needed by the cities, what capabilities are available within our city network and how we can share lessons learned so far. Further a publicly available tool (plug-in for QGIS) was developed: An integrated tool capable of mapping future emissions based on city climate plans and urban development plans. This tool may help a city to create ‘scenarios’ for future city developments and emission mitigation plans.
Outreach and engagement took place in many different forms and activities. For example, we provided many posters and talks at the European Geoscience Union (EGU23) general assembly. Many of our partners presented the project to the broader scientific community as well as to the public. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) as another example shared information about PAUL with the WMO network (WMO Study Group on Integrated Urban Services and Steering Committee of the Integrated Global Greenhouse Gas Information System, IG3IS) to include the good practices that are being developed by PAUL to the IG3IS Urban Greenhouse Gas Emission Observation and Monitoring Good Research Practice Guidelines. This document is planned to be regularly.
We have created a series of public available talks, ICOS Cities Talks, covering a very broad range of topics in regard to greenhouse gas emissions in a city. We cover scientific methods of measurements, flux calculation, importance and influence of vegetation, policies, climate action plans, tools and services: what is needed what is useful, etc. This series was created based on our internal need to communicate and bridge the gaps within different scientific communities, but we realized very soon the value and benefit to a wider audience. We intend to continue this series to the end of the project.