Climate Change Adaptation to Heat Risk at the Local Level: A Bayesian Network Analysis of Local Land-Use Plan Implementation

Urban and environmental planning plays an important role in climate change adaptation. In this area, most German cities have developed adaptation strategies, inter alia tackling growing urban heat effects. Still in question, however, is how these measures will be implemented at the local level. The goal of this paper is to assess the implementation probability of climate change adaptation measures via local land-use plans using a Bayesian Network approach. Six plans were analysed in-depth. We used expert interviews to estimate the likelihood of implementing climate-adapted measures. Whether a local land-use plan stimulates climate change adaptation depends on a combination of different factors, e.g. the setting of the borough councillor in exchange with an investor, in a next step the willingness of the plans’ creator to implement adaptation strategies as well as an existing environmental report.