New ways to build consensus in the transformation of urban water and green space management for climate change adaptation

In view of the advancing climate change and the accompanying changes in our living environment, spatial planning and decisions on urban open space design are increasingly becoming part of the public discourse on sustainable climate adaptation. Urban open spaces are suitable for climate-sensitive urban development through the use of Blue-Green-Brown Infrastructure (BGB-I) and urban green spaces, which contribute to improving temperature conditions, flexible urban water management, improving air quality and increasing biodiversity. Despite the extensive selection of tested measures and management forms among the BGB approaches, the implementation of such measures in Austrian municipalities is currently still limited to individual application examples with a rather modest level of acceptance and attention on the part of the population. Conflicts of use and interest, combined with a sceptical attitude towards design changes in public space, can lead to defensive reactions or a complete rejection of such approaches in the medium and long term. This project therefore addresses the important question of how an improved consensus in climate-sensitive open space design can be achieved by involving as many stakeholders as possible in planning processes. By applying participatory methods in the city of Gleisdorf (Styria), perceptions, attitudes and narratives of selected stakeholder groups are elicited and jointly considered and questioned through a reflective, transdisciplinary approach. By means of the Quantitative Storytelling (QST) method and a subsequent multi-criteria decision analysis, a common consensus is sought. In this way, co-determination and a sense of co-responsibility are to be strengthened. Findings from the case study are to be used in the form of a guide for better consensus-building in other communities.