Demographic change and climate change together place great challenges on the society. The life expectancy of the population in Germany rises and so does the share of older people. Besides chronic patients and children, the elderly are especially affected by the effects of the climate change. At the same time more and more people live in single person households (increase from 14.56 million in 2004 to 16.83 million in 2016 in Germany), which can influence their social isolation.

The Vistula River is a 1,046 km long river which springs in southern Poland and ends in the Baltic Sea. The Upper Vistula extends over the three Polish provinces of Małopolskie, Podkarpackie and Swietokrzyskie. The Upper Vistula region covers an area of 43,000 km², including the cities of Krakow, Tarnow, Kielce, Nowy Sacz, Rzeszow, Przemysl and Krosno. The area is also known for its extraordinary natural values. The region is prone to flood risk both in winter and in summer.

Bologna, like many Southern European cities, is facing drought, extreme temperatures and water scarcity as a result of climate change. With no national or regional adaptation action plan still in place, the city of Bologna took it upon themselves to draft an Adaptation Plan to Climate Change. The plan, which was approved by the City Council on October 2015, focuses on the development of innovative, concrete measures that could be tested locally.

In inner city Berlin, plans for the development of new buildings are subjected to the Berlin Landscape Programme, which includes a regulation requiring a proportion of the area to be left as green space: the Biotope Area Factor (BAF) or BFF (Biotop Flächenfaktor). All potential green areas, such as courtyards, roofs and walls are included in the BAF. The regulation is a part of a larger set of documents relating to landscape planning and design as well as species protection. It responds to the need to encourage more green space in densely built-up urban areas.

The neighbourhood of Augustenborg, during the 1980s and 1990s an area of social and economic decline, was frequently flooded by an overflowing drainage system. Between 1998 and 2002 it was regenerated. The physical changes in infrastructure included the creation of sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS), including 6km of water channels and ten retention ponds.

With 5.71 m²/inhabitant in 2019, the city of Basel in Switzerland has the largest area of green roofs per capita in the world (Living roofs and walls from policy to practice, 2019).

The 19^th century industrialisation in Lodz heavily affected the city’s rivers, altering their ecosystems and hydrology. Many rivers in the densely built-up city were canalized. This resulted in a higher flood risk from runoff during heavy rain periods. Low water retention also implies reduction of soil moisture during dry spells, contributing to higher temperature and reduced air humidity (urban heat island). Based on climate change projections, it is expected that the intensity of heavy rain periods and higher temperatures will increase and exacerbate these problems.

To combat the impacts of cloudbursts, the City of Copenhagen developed a Cloudburst Management Plan in 2012, which is an offshoot of the Copenhagen Climate Adaptation Plan. The Plan outlines the priorities and measures recommended for climate adaptation including extreme rainfall. The City carried out an overall assessment of the costs of different measures (traditional vs different options including adaptation measures), the cost of the damages despite the measures and resulting financial impact.

Climate change impact assessment has been an integrated part of the design and planning of the Copenhagen metro since the first metro line was designed in the mid-1990s. For this scope, Metroselskabet, the Copenhagen metro company, developed a climate change adaptation strategy, which supports the integration of adaptation aspects since the planning and dimensioning phase of the metro system. Apart from the first metro line, opened in 2002, and related extensions in following years, in 2019 Metroselskabet put into operation a new city circle line (Cityringen line M3/M4).

This case study describes the flood risk management plan and the related restoration of a formerly canalized eight kilometres stretch of the Isar river in the city of Munich (the so called “Isar Plan”). Still in the beginning of the 19^th century, the Isar was a typical wild alpine river with wide gravel islands and sandbanks and a constantly changing riverbed. In the middle of the 19^th century after repeated flooding suffered by the Lehel, Au and Thal districts in Munich, hydraulic regulation began, and the riverbed was canalized.