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 the second reporting period all thre observatories are implemented, running and provididing data, which is public available. Together with the observations, and newly created high-resolution spatio-temporal greenhouse gas emission inventory for 2022 for all pilot cities, the modelling is now in full swing. Theses efforts provided already scientific peer reviewd papers and many more are expected. Outreach and engagement activities have increased as well, with stakeholder interviews, co-design workshop to hone in to services and tools needed by the cities, and the continuation of the ICOS Cities Talks.
