Climate adaptation to urban heat : A study of how Swedish municipalities with larger cities are adapting to warmer temperatures through urban planning

Sammanfattning: The world is currently facing a changing climate and the various negative effects that it entails. In recent decades, enhanced climate adaptation responses have therefore become increasingly common across the world. In Sweden, climate adaptation through urban planning has mainly focused on challenges such as flooding, erosion and sea level rise rather than heat. However, warmer temperatures are recognised as one of the main challenges of climate change, not least for urban areas and the people who live there. Thus, the aim of this thesis was to explore how Swedish municipalities with larger cities work with urban planning to address the challenges of warmer temperatures and how strategies for adaptation to urban heat are portrayed in municipal planning documents. This was done through a qualitative document analysis of municipal planning documents from three Swedish municipalities, Huddinge, Kristianstad and Norrköping. The results show that Swedish municipalities in the planning documents mainly portray urban heat as problematic but that some municipalities also choose to highlight possible positive effects. Furthermore, the results show that preserving and enhancing green structures of various sizes can be considered the main strategy for climate adaptation to urban heat in Swedish municipalities. However, some municipalities are also working with a few other strategies, including local investigations, technical measures and increased local knowledge. Lastly, some Swedish municipalities can also be understood to have as strategy to work with clearly formulated goals and measures in their planning documents.