Abstract Summary
Climate change and urbanization can lead to serious environmental, social and economic problems affecting an increasing number of people in an increasingly expanding urban environments of the 21st century. To mitigate and adapt to the climate change impacts in cities, a number of urban services must be provided to ensure the safety and well-being of urban dwellers. Among the services provided, urban hydrometeorological services (UHMS) can play an important role. Unfortunately, until now the study of urban climate, meteorological or hydrological conditions has mostly been done in silos, neglecting the necessity of applying a more holistic approach based on urban hydrometeorological analyses. These types of analyses and developed UHMS can assist decision-making in cities to address different urban environmental problems (e.g., heat, drought, flood, ventilation) for different sectors (e.g., planning and design, health, energy, water) in short and long term. Combining hydro and meteo research and providing co-designed products and services can help create climate and hydrometeorologically resilient cities. The development and provision of UHMS was analyzed for two case study cities in the Netherlands (Amsterdam and Rotterdam) based on the following: 1) What are the hydrometeorological hazards prevalent in these cities?; 2) Which services exist and which services are missing?; 3) Who are the users of the services and how they apply them in their work?; 4) What are the requirements for the services?; and 5) How to integrate different services?. By exploring these and other questions, it was possible to obtain a clearer picture of the UHMS in selected cities as well as to make recommendations for their future co-development and application.
