WEF4Build. Boosting climate resilience through water-energy-food nexus based solutions

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Climate change is causing a wide range of problems and challenges around the world. One of the most significant impacts of climate change is the increase in global temperatures, which is causing more frequent and severe heat waves and droughts. At the building level, as temperatures rise, buildings will require more energy for cooling, which will further increase energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. However, lots of buildings lack cooling systems, and as a consequence, indoor overheating issues can increasingly occur. At the ecosystem level, climate change will also impact food production and water availability.

The urban agrivoltaics green strategy is expected to be crucial to (i) mitigate emissions, (ii) raise the climate resilience of buildings under future extreme weather conditions and move forward to more sustainable, and (iii) circular and liveable cities.

Buildings' rooftops constitute significant underutilised urban areas with direct exposure to sunlight. Until now, and within the context of the clean energy transition, they have been used to provide part of buildings' energy demand using photovoltaic solar panels. However, green roofs are becoming a promising possibility to increase the local food supply and enhance food security.

The main objective of the WEF4Build project is to boost buildings' climate resilience by implementing solutions based on the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus in buildings' rooftops. Rooftop WEF solutions devised in this project will be defined in a co-creation process covering:

• Photovoltaic panels installed on rooftops
• Basic hydroponic agriculture cultivation systems with different substrates
• Photovoltaic panels covering partially the crop system
• Advanced building-integrated rooftop greenhouse systems
• Advanced building-integrated rooftop greenhouse systems with semi-transparent photovoltaic panels or photovoltaic glass.

The WEF4Build project will evaluate the current and the future buildings’ energy performance when implementing rooftop WEF solutions considering different climate change projections. For this reason, firstly a set of future weather files to run building simulations considering the Catalan regional climate projections will be created. The water metabolism of buildings will be also analysed to assess the sustainability potential of water recirculation within buildings and explore the synergies between rain, wastewater and building-integrated agriculture. Food production in urban green roof infrastructures and synergies with photovoltaic panels will also be investigated. Finally, WEF4Build green-roof solutions will be evaluated under climate resilience criteria. The viability, sustainability, scalability and social acceptance of the WEF4Build project and strategies will also be assessed.