Demotyökalu tarjoaa uudenlaisen ristiintarkastelun ilmastoriskeihin

25.3.2025 | Forum Virium Helsinki

There’s been an increasing awareness of climate change impacts also in Finland. Extreme weather conditions like heat waves and urban flooding are becoming more probable. Adapting to these risks is essential, requiring a combination of various approaches.

Text by Heli Ponto.

Adaptation measures can be simple, such as closing the curtains during a heatwave or cooling down by taking a swim. Cities also have adaptation strategies, and the implementation may involve visible changes in urban spaces. Dense asphalt can be changed into water-permeable surfaces, and shade-providing trees can be planted in street areas.

Social justice as a cornerstone of adaptation

Cities’ climate adaptation strategies often rely on various political decisions and values. Adaptation can be carried out based on cost-effectiveness or urgency, for example. Socially just adaptation considers that the impacts of climate change are not evenly distributed among people. For example, not everyone has the opportunity to acquire air conditioning, or some areas may have limited cooling green infrastructure. A socially just transition to climate resilience pays attention to those in the most vulnerable positions.

Free digital twin demo tool helps visualise adaptation choices

The Regions4Climate project promotes nature-based solutions to support adaptation. Nature-based solutions refer to solutions that sustainably rely on or are inspired by nature to address societal challenges. Green infrastructure is at the core of nature-based solutions, and thus a focus of the Regions4Climate project.

Forum Virium Helsinki has developed a digital twin demo tool that combines various data on climate risks, the socioeconomic structure of the population, and green elements. It offers a new kind of cross-examination of climate risks and vulnerability, and illustrates the importance of the green environment in managing these risks.

The demo tool includes views on grid data sets describing socioeconomic vulnerability and a heat load map illustrating surface temperatures (Figure 1). We organised a demonstration event (recording in Finnish) on December 10, 2024, after which we developed the demo tool based on the feedback received.

Recently, we have added to the demo tool general flood map visualisations (Figure 2) and data on the annual Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to describe the amount of green vegetation (Figure 3).

Figure 1. The grid data set (250m x 250m) describes socioeconomic vulnerability to heat. The data is a statistical analysis of vulnerability. Source: Statistics Finland.

Figure 2. View of a stormwater flood map and surface temperatures. The image also shows a menu bar. Note: the flood map has significant errors and is not suitable for building-specific analysis. Source: Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) and Landsat.

The aim is to add a feature to visualise and assess the directional impacts of adaptation measures in the demo tool. Adaptation measures can include, for example, adding cooling centers or vegetation. The visualisations are intended to facilitate discussions on different adaptation strategies and help visualise what adaptation could mean in urban spaces and how it affects vulnerability. The goal is to make the tool more interactive so that users can adjust variables themselves and consider their impacts.

There are few easy-to-use tools to support adaptation. The demo tool has been made available even in the development phase to make it easier to understand the risks, ensure development is interactive, and facilitate discussion on adaptation needs. Adaptation measures are already urgent.