The municipality of Oradea plans to implement, for the first time in Romania, in the next five years, a series of local climate adaptation solutions to combat urban heat waves, through a project financed by the European Commission.

According to a press release of the Oradea City Hall, the ‘Life Cool Zone’ project is initiated by the Hungarian authorities (Ministry of Public Administration, Hungaromet – National Meteorological Service, Lechner Knowledge Center, Association of Climate Friendly Localities, National Institute of Public Health and Debrecen City Hall), the only external partner of the project being the City Hall of Oradea, twinned city with Debrecen, co-opted by the Hungarian authorities.

‘The project promotes cross-border cooperation between Romania and Hungary and proposes a scalable approach, focused on functional areas, in order to establish coherent and efficient public policies for climate change adaptation throughout Central and Eastern Europe,’ the city hall’s press release states.

The project has an implementation period of 60 months and is financed through the European Union’s LIFE Programme with a total value of 4,334,614.94 euros, of which Oradea benefits from 878,566.30 euros.

In order to identify the urban areas that heat up the most during summer days, Oradea will use a meteorological simulation model developed in France and internationally recognized, the SURFEX numerical climate model, which simulates heat, humidity and radiation flows between the soil and the atmosphere.

In ensuring the sustainability of the project, a climate decision-making platform will be established at the level of the Functional Urban Area. This will facilitate inter-institutional collaboration and alignment with national and European climate change adaptation policies.

The project places a major emphasis on local community involvement, through thematic public consultations, awareness campaigns and climate education activities addressed to citizens, business and civil society, as well as children, through the organization of ‘Cool Kids Camps’ in Oradea and Debrecen.

Based on the SURFEX simulations and the climate vulnerability analysis, a Local Climate Change Adaptation Strategy for Oradea and the functional urban area will be developed, which will be integrated into the development strategies of the municipality.