Climate adaptation · Map series · as of 15 October 2026 · Deutsch
Street by street: where heat builds up and where shade is missing
154 maps for towns and cities across Germany, in 44 other European countries as well as in Beijing, Baku, Ankara, Washington, D.C. and New York City, from Beijing with 11.0 million down to Rattenberg with 446 inhabitants. Each one shows, street by street, where heat builds up in public space and where shade is missing.
The series is produced independently. Method and data sources are documented for every location. It does not stand in for an official climate analysis; it answers the question that comes before one: where can we act first, and what will it cost?
A tour of the example map: aerial image, tree canopy, trees, daytime heat and the streets where protection works first. Each layer can also be chosen on its own.
daytime heat load, five steps
tree crowns
doubly burdened: hot and without a tree
search area
assessed public place
Heat, missing shade and public places on top of each other: red marks the streets that are heat-loaded and have no tree nearby.
daytime heat load, five steps
tree crowns
doubly burdened: hot and without a tree
search area
assessed public place
The canopy as an area instead of one circle per tree, calculated from the height model: it reaches into gardens and street edges that a circle leaves out.
tree crowns
Every crown individually, derived from the surface model, private land included.
tree crowns
Heat load on a summer day, from the state's urban climate model.
daytime heat load, five steps
Heat load on a hot summer night: where the town does not cool down.
Night-time heat load, five levels
Areas to examine for new trees: street space without crowns where planting may be possible.
search area
tree crowns
Meerbusch, the freely accessible example map of the series. The heat load comes from the state's urban climate model on a 25 m grid (Klimaanalyse NRW 2026, LANUK, FITNAH 3D), modelled rather than estimated from satellite imagery. The tree crowns are derived from Geobasis NRW's 50 cm surface model and, unlike a tree cadastre, cover private land as well; buildings and land use come parcel-accurate from the cadastre. Red marks the places where a planting takes effect first. The search areas are areas to examine: whether a tree can stand there depends on utility lines, emergency access and the parking spaces that would go. The map shows those spaces. Every layer can be switched and clicked separately, every source documented with date and licence.
15.9 %crown cover over street space24.5 %of the heat-loaded street area with no tree within 17 metres857individually assessed public places
Since the European Climate Law of 2021, every EU member state must adopt and implement national adaptation strategies and plans based on vulnerability analyses. Germany takes the duty down to the municipality: its Climate Adaptation Act provides for adaptation plans for municipalities and districts, based on a climate risk analysis or comparable groundwork.
In Austria the 2024 adaptation strategy sets the framework, and a climate act has been announced. In Switzerland the Climate and Innovation Act has, since 2025, obliged the Confederation and the cantons to take adaptation measures, naming rising temperatures and extreme events explicitly. These maps supply the spatial groundwork for the heat component: street by street, with documented sources.
Legal bases: Regulation (EU) 2021/1119, Article 5(4) · KAnG section 12(1) and (3) · Austrian Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change, 2024 edition · KlG, SR 814.310, Article 8
What municipalities pay today for related work
Price range
Urban climate analysis for a large city, including a measures planFürth city council paper
€180,000–220,000
Climate adaptation plan, town of 41,000Town of Leinfelden-Echterdingen
€75,000–150,000
Urban climate analysis for a large city, without a measures planAustrian Court of Audit, Linz report
€97,260 budgeted
Urban climate analysis for a mid-sized townMeerbusch council records
around €40,000
These are not comparable prices for the same work: those studies model the urban climate, which reaches deeper and costs more than evaluating existing official geodata. They only show the range in which municipalities currently address heat.
What the maps show
Four questions, across the whole municipality
All maps answer the same four questions, across the entire municipal area:
Where does heat pool at night? The basis is the climate analysis or climate model of the respective federal state, day and night kept apart wherever both exist. Night comes first because bodies and buildings barely cool down on warm nights.
Where is the shade missing? The computation works from the tree canopies above street space, taken from a tree cadastre where one exists and otherwise from aerial imagery and surface models, laid over the parcels of the cadastre.
Where would a tree help most? The search points to where a severely heat-stressed street surface and no canopy within reach come together. Schools, playgrounds, bus stops and care homes also get a shading figure of their own, because people have to spend time there.
What stands in the way? A tree needs ground, and street space is long since allotted: parking bays, utility lines, driveways. The maps name the parking spaces a planting would cost.
AerialMap
The same section of Meerbusch, aerial image on the left, map on the right. Drag the handle to compare. Aerial image: Geobasis NRW, digital orthophotos DOP20 (dl-de/zero-2.0), as the map loads it for its background.
Who it is for
One groundwork, three different questions
A priority order that holds up in committee
The map shows for the whole municipality, street by street, where shade is missing and where heat stress is high. Every figure carries its source and date.
Public places such as day-care centres, schools and stops ranked by their shade, plus search areas to be checked for new tree sites. In the example map of Meerbusch, 321 of 857 public places assessed have less than ten per cent shade.
Every key figure is computed a second time, by a different route, from the raw data; a data-check page discloses the coverage and value range of every field.
Investment needs and funding scenarios on a page of their own.
Citable in committee papers, strategies and funding applications. The map does not replace a site visit, it makes it targeted. The climate analysis shows which measures help; the map shows on which streets they work first.
First step: site dossier €2,900. Your own map from €14,500, tiered by population. Net.
Every property assessed with its surroundings
Which courtyard gets unsealed, where is shade missing at the entrance? The portfolio dossier assesses a building stock across one or several cities, on the same official data the local authorities use.
A property list: daytime and night-time heat, existing shade and unbuilt land for each property, as far as the regional data allow.
First come the properties where high heat, missing shade and free space coincide: where a measure is both needed and possible.
For sustainability reports and funding applications: every figure with source and date, citable in your own report.
No GIS workstation needed; linking to your in-house portfolio data on request.
Portfolio dossier €5,000, regardless of the number of properties. Advisory days €1,450 per day. Net.
The same map, cut to your site
Production areas are usually well covered by occupational safety. The greater risk lies in offices, canteens, break areas and the routes between them. The instance follows the site fence rather than the municipal boundary and computes key figures of its own for the site.
Employees' routes and break areas assessed: where heat builds up, where shade is missing, which areas could take planting. Site inspections become targeted.
Confidential: password protection on the web server, time-limited access for third parties, not indexed by search engines.
In-house data can be added as layers of their own.
Each further site costs 60 per cent of the first price.
Site instance from €34,500. First step: site dossier for companies €5,900. Net.
The map is wider than the screen and can be swiped sideways. Every place is also in the list below.
Hover over a place to see the canopy cover over its street space, taken from its map. It is only comparable between places with the same tree data, which is why that is shown.
place with a map in this overview
outside the map view, marker at the edge
Every place name leads straight into a password-protected area. Clicking Germany opens the overview of all maps in that country. Outline and state borders: OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0). For maps outside the map view, direction and distance are measured from the centre of the area shown. The map shows one capital per country; 104 further maps in the series are counted and appear in the list below, but are not drawn here.Position in the European context, in addition to the detailed map above: highlighted are the 49 countries with maps in this series. Every one of the 27 EU member states is now represented by at least one map. Outline: OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0), retrieved on 4 August 2026.All 154 maps as a list
Every map in this overview
The same maps as above, as a list, including those the graphic had no room for. Each name leads to that place’s map page.
In its basic version the method works at every scale and needs no input from the town hall.
The whole municipal area. Street by street, interactive, in a separate password-protected area for your administration. On request also on your own server.
Priority sites for action. Where severe heat stress coincides with a lack of shade, including the surfaces and parking spaces that stand in the way of planting.
Shading figures for public places. Schools, playgrounds, bus stops and care homes, each assessed individually.
Method and sources. Every source documented with its issuing body, date and licence, the central figure independently cross-checked, citable for committee papers and funding applications.
€2,900Site dossier, net
from €14,500Your own map, net
What it costs. If your municipality already appears in this overview, the smallest step is a site dossier at €2,900 net: one to five pages with the figures of your own map, each with its source and its caveat. It is credited in full against a later map. A map of your own starts at €14,500 net for municipalities up to 25,000 inhabitants and is tiered by population, as a fixed table. Annual updating is charged separately; without it every map goes out of date.
What would a map cost for your municipality?
inhabitants
up to 25,000 inhabitants€14,500Your own map, set-up, net
Operation €2,900 a year: hosting, security maintenance and one full data update. The first twelve months after acceptance are included.
One example map is freely accessible with all basic features: Meerbusch →
Request a map for your municipality An email with the name of your municipality is enough: kontakt@julianzuber.de. Population and country or region help: the population sets the price tier, the region determines which official data is available for your map. Corrections are just as welcome.
