Climate change is having an increasing impact on daily life in cities. Extreme heat, air pollution, and other environmental stresses pose growing risks to human health, particularly for vulnerable groups such as children, older adults, and people with chronic illnesses.
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The new interdisciplinary research consortium MEDICUS is developing practical solutions in collaboration with local governments, decision-makers, and civil society.
MEDICUS (Adaptation Strategies to the MEDICal Implications of Climate Change for Urban TranSformation) aims to identify concrete recommendations for actions regarding individual, urban, and planetary health from the perspectives of environmental medicine and urban planning. These recommendations are derived from climate and environmental modeling of these challenges.
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To this end, high-resolution urban climate models are first methodically linked with large-scale climate simulations to enable precise predictions of future exposure patterns and to capture both long-term trends and short-term exposure peaks. Based on this, evidence-based and participatory strategies to raise awareness of the issues and mitigate climate-related health risks are developed and evaluated in real-world laboratories at the neighborhood level in Munich and Augsburg. These are disseminated through digital tools such as a resilience app and a serious game, and scaled up to other areas through simulation models.
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The project is being carried out in collaboration with the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich and the Technical University Munich.?

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Project participants:?

• Dr. Magdalena Mittermeier, Chair of Physical Geography and Environmental Modeling at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Department of Geography
• Prof. Dr. med. Claudia Traidl-Hoffmann, Augsburg University, Universit?tsklinikum Augsburg, Institute of Environmental Medicine and Integrative Health, EMIH
• Dr. Stefanie Ruf,?Chair of Urban Design at the Technical University of Munich, School of Engineering and Design

• To the press release from?Uni-A
• To the? press release from LMU