Challenge

Municipalities face significant challenges in climate change adaptation: a shortage of skilled geoinformatics personnel, complex inter- and intra-municipal coordination processes, and low public acceptance and self-provisioning delay urgently needed planning measures. Cities like Bad Berleburg and Hagen are already severely affected — from widespread tree die-off caused by drought to substantial damage from heavy rainfall events and flash floods.

Objectives & Methodology

VelocityAdapt develops a socio-technical infrastructure that addresses these barriers by combining Urban Digital Twins (UDT) with immersive visualization technologies, participatory engagement formats, and spatial data analysis methods. At its core is a modular no-code configurator that combines visual building blocks such as drag-and-drop and configurable modules with LLM-powered interaction as an additional abstraction layer. This LLM-augmented end-user development enables municipal stakeholders without deep IT expertise to independently model what-if scenarios. Additionally, planning proposals are visualized using Extended Reality technologies both on-site (in-situ) and in exploration spaces (ex-situ), making them tangible for citizens. Practical testing takes place in real-world laboratories in Hagen and Bad Berleburg (NRW).

Expected Impact / Transfer

The project aims to significantly accelerate climate adaptation planning processes and enable broader societal participation in municipal decision-making through low-threshold technology access. It will deliver a functional prototype of a modular, transferable platform, validated in the real-world laboratories through concrete use cases — including flood protection, heat stress analysis, and heavy rainfall hazard management. The platform is intended to serve as a blueprint for other cities and regions facing similar climate adaptation challenges.

The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR).

Key partners in the project are the University of Siegen (coordination), the City of Bad Berleburg, the City of Hagen, the Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS Potsdam), LandPlanOS GmbH, 52°North Spatial Information Research GmbH and the Center for Digital Development GmbH