Climate Change Projections for a Medium-Size Urban Area (Baia Mare Town, Romania): Local Awareness and Adaptation Constraints

Abstract

Numerous studies worldwide emphasize the impacts that cities now face due to increasing variability of weather extremes associated with climate change, exacerbating the urban heat island effect, air pollution and health impacts. In this respect, cities need to cope with these new threats and get prepared. One way of doing this is to develop climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies, focusing on local vulnerabilities in relation to the current societal development needs and adaptation options. There are many recent initiatives and examples for climate change adaptation strategies and plans for large cities, but only a few examples for small and medium-size cities. This paper investigates the mid-(2021–2050) and far-future (2071–2100) climate change signals in an urban area located in northern Romania (Baia Mare town), with around 200,000 inhabitants, exploring the results of some CORDEX GCMs under the new IPCC RCPs (RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). The study analyzes these signals in relation to the local awareness of key institutional stakeholders, as well as to the current social and economic constraints towards considering the climate change adaptation. The findings, based on a survey, highlight how the local authorities perceive and include climate change aspects in their activities as an important step towards real implementation of specific climate-based decisions, as well as their needs in terms of climate information and data. The study provides useful scientific insights about future climate and expected impacts in the Baia Mare Urban System to stakeholders, which could increase their awareness and knowledge in terms of climate change.