The opening conference of the Interreg project Plants4Cooling, which is being carried out jointly with institutions from the Czech Republic and Austria, took place on 11 June 2024 in the border town of České Velenice.
As part of the opening conference, the participating project partners presented findings from past activities on the topics of vertical greening, the cooling effect of plants, agroforestry, multi-use hedges and green infrastructure in municipalities. The projects and plans within the framework of the Interreg project were then presented. Institute for Land and Water Management Research is significantly involved in two work packages, where the quantification and visualisation of the cooling effect of plants for the public and the in-depth investigation of urban substrates for the infiltration and retention of surface water, which is further used for cooling by plants, are in the foreground.
In the afternoon, simple measuring devices for solar radiation, surface and air temperature and their use for understanding the surface energy balance were explained and applied. Finally, various urban blue-green infrastructures in Ceske Velenice and the neighbouring Austrian town of Gmünd were visited.