Measures for adaptation to climate change through water retention and cooling by transpiration: A catalogue of measures for a drought-prone area in eastern Germany

As climate change progresses, summer droughts are becoming more frequent and severe in some regions. One example is the Elbe-Elster district (southern Brandenburg, Germany), where rising temperatures are increasingly limiting water availability. Therefore, within the framework of the IAWAK-EE research project, we have compiled measures with which the available water can be retained longer in the area or in the soil. The retained water is then available to the plants for evapotranspiration, which cools the land surface.

The measures are assigned to the various land use groups of agriculture, forestry and water management, settlement areas and nature conservation. In the context of the IAWAK-EE project, they form the basis for spatially concrete proposals and for the selection of cost-effective measures. This report presents the selected measures in the form of standardized measure sheets.