Adapting spatial development to the challenges of climate change is a major task facing cities. In particular, urban heat islands caused by increasing average temperatures and urban growth are a challenge for cities. The use of climate simulations to assess current and future urban heat stress is a helpful approach for supporting this transition. In particular, green and blue infrastructure helps to reduce the urban heat island effect. These cooling effects can be analysed using simulations. However, a central challenge is that urban adaptation to heat needs to be implemented consistently at different planning levels. A second major challenge in adaption is identifying the amount of urban green infrastructure required in order to achieve a specific cooling benefit and establishing this by means of planning instruments. This article presents two case studies in the city of Vienna to demonstrate how climate simulation tools can be used across different planning levels if they are standardized. When combined with a green and open space factor as a steering instrument, the necessary amount of greening for subsequent planning processes can be secured. The result is a multi-scale toolset consisting of three climate simulation models and a green and open space factor, coordinated, and standardised for use at different levels of planning.

The ongoing effect of climate change heating up urban areas is forcing cities to exploit the adaptation potential of their public open spaces. Streets and squares are important urban open spaces that can contribute to climate change adaptation through the targeted application of individual measures. In order to ensure the effective and appropriate application of climate-relevant measures for the public good, the city of Vienna relies on the development of a guideline that focuses on measures from the field of urban green and blue infrastructure (UGBI) (and a few technical measures (TM)) in the urban open space. In the future, this guideline will make it easier for city employees to select appropriate measures. In the context of an applied research project, existing and possible measures in Vienna were collected, examined, and assessed for their climate, ecological, and social sustainability based on the concept of ecosystem services (ES). The challenge here is to capture this broad topic of sustainability and climate change and to draw on a broad spectrum of knowledge from science and research, as well as directly from practice. The result is a methodological framework that can be used by other cities as a basis for the development of individual guidelines to foster climate-relevant measures and a critical analysis of the use of co-creation in the development of the framework.