Schools as climate shelters: Design, implementation and monitoring methodology based on the Barcelona experience
Fabián López Plazas, Eva Crespo Sánchez, Raquel Llorca Pérez, Emma Santacana Albanilla
Abstract
Densely populated cities tend to significantly affect their inhabitants in warm periods as a result of climate change . With approximately 1.6 million inhabitants, Barcelona serves as an example of a city expected to face the impact of climate change. Projections by 2100, the city will witness an increase of 30 additional warm days per year with temperatures exceeding 30 °C, along with a rise in extreme temperatures from 3.5 °C to 42.8 °C. Schools represent spaces of opportunity to transform cities, due to their great potential to deploy strategies to improve extreme conditions and their possible replicability in other buildings and spaces in the city. This article introduces a novel methodology, characterized by its multi-criteria, multi-scalar, and interdisciplinary approach, which demonstrated its effectiveness in the implementation of measures to transform 11 pilot schools into climate shelters, within the expected deadlines and costs. In addition, the necessary information is provided for its replicability and subsequent monitoring. With a budget close to 4 M€, 4.500 kids will benefit from the pilot investments in their school, 1.350 kids will benefit during summer camps hosted in school's playgrounds, 3.000m2 of schoolyards will be transformed and 4.500m2 of urban green areas will be added. The results indicate that three schools improved by over 40%, four by 25%–40%, and four by 25% or less. The methodology and tools developed have been adopted as tools for other projects that are currently being developed by the Barcelona City Council. • Climate shelters as a strategy to adapt cities to climate change. • School renovation processes with educational community participation. • Multicriteria Methodology to evaluate improvement solutions in schools. • Passive solutions to improve habitability of school playgrounds. • Diagnosis and monitoring indicators to objective comparisons between schools.