The Adaptation Support Tool (AST) and KBS Toolbox have been developed to support the collaborative planning of climate adaptation measures for a more resilient and attractive cities. The AST can be used in design workshops and individually by urban planners, landscape architects, water managers, civil engineers, local stakeholders and other experts to create conceptual designs. Participants can use the AST on a touch screen to select adaptation interventions, situate them in their project area and immediately obtain an estimate of their effectiveness and costs.

The AST includes 62 adaptation measures for ecosystem-based adaptation – also called blue-green infrastructure such as green roofs, bioswales, porous pavement and water squares-, a selection tool for ranking measures based on their applicability and an assessment tool to estimate the effectiveness of applied adaptation measures.

The AST estimates the performance of the measures for a number of key metrics, e.g. created storage capacity, frequency reduction of the normative runoff, heat stress reduction, extra groundwater recharge, water quality effects and costs. Performance is determined for each adaptation measure separately as well as for total package of measures.

The to can be found in English at https://crctool.org and in Dutch at https://kbstoolbox.nl

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Documentation on the tool can be found here: Documentation

A manual on how to use the tool can be found here: Manual

Literature

McEvoy S., F.H.M. van de Ven, R. Brolsma, J. H. Slinger,Evaluating a Planning Support System’s use and effects in urban adaptation: an exploratory case study from Berlin, Germany,Sustainability 2020 https://doi.org/10.3390/su12010173

McEvoy S (2019) Planning support tools in urban adaptation practice. PhD thesis, TU Delft, https://doi.org/10.4233/uuid:48b7649c-5062-4c97-bba7-970fc92d7bbf or https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid%3A48b7649c-5062-4c97-bba7-970fc92d7bbf

McEvoy S, FHM van de Ven, MW Blind, JH Slinger (2018) Planning support tools and their effects in participatory urban adaptation workshops, Journal of Environmental Management, Volume 207, 1 February 2018, Pages 319-333, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.10.041

Van de Ven FHM , RPH Snep, S Koole, RJ Brolsma, R van der Brugge, J Spijker, T Vergroesen (2016) Adaptation Planning Support Toolbox: Measurable performance information based tools for co-creation of resilient, ecosystem-based urban plans with urban designers, decision-makers and stakeholders, Environmental Science & Policy, Volume 66, 2016, Pages 427-436, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2016.06.010

Voskamp IM, Van de Ven FHM (2015) Planning support system for climate adaptation: Composing effective sets of blue-green measures to reduce urban vulnerability to extreme weather events. Building and Environment 83, p 159-167. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2014.07.018

How Ecosystem-based solutions can develop climate resilient cities, ADB, https://development.asia/explainer/how-ecosystem-based-solutions-can-develop-climate-resilient-cities