CoolKREMS - Measuring and influencing the climate resilience of settlement areas

The research project CoolKREMS deals with the urban heat island problem in the city of Krems. For this purpose, the heat island effects in the historic old town ensemble are evaluated by measurements and different passive cooling strategies on and in the vicinity of the buildings, e.g. Greening measures, night ventilation, shading, etc. checked for their effectiveness and assessed in their potential. The results show that the city of Krems is already affected by the problem of urban heat islands. If no cooling measures are taken, it can be assumed that in 2050 a large part of the existing historical buildings will be significantly overheated in summer. At the same time, however, the enormous cooling potential of the above-mentioned measures could be shown. In the future, comfortable interior temperatures will include networking greening measures for lowering the outside temperature combined with passive cooling strategies in the urban area. With the help of student project work, such effective greening measures were worked out at exemplary old town squares in downtown Krems.