Granollers: Setting the Scene, Challenges and Vision

The core challenge in Granollers revolves around increasing flood risks, both from pluvial (intense rainfall) and fluvial (river-related) sources, which threaten critical urban infrastructure located in flood-prone zones.

These risks have cascading impacts on key systems, including:

• Water supply and sewer systems,
• Transport networks,
• Energy distribution, and
• Emergency services.

To address these vulnerabilities, there is a need to update and align local strategies with broader frameworks, such as:

• The Catalan Climate Change Adaptation Strategy 2030 (ESCACC30),
• The Municipal Civil Protection Master Plan (DUPROCIM).

Granollers, with a population of around 60,000, offers a manageable scale for intervention, yet its high infrastructure interdependence demands careful planning. This context underscores the strategic importance of integrating adaptation and mitigation measures in vulnerable areas to build resilience.

The workshop on flood resilience in Granollers demonstrated strong stakeholder engagement, with 34 out of 37 invited participants attending, reflecting a high engagement rate.

Multi-sector representation was a key feature, including stakeholders from:

• Water & sewerage,
• Transport,
• Green infrastructure,
• Energy,
• Construction,
• Manufacturing,
• ICT, and
• Agriculture.

The workshop also ensured inclusivity and transparency by:

• Recording gender-disaggregated participation,
• Collecting consent forms, and
• Confirming that stakeholders had reviewed and understood the pre-distributed information package.

Participants showed strong involvement in:

• Identifying measures,
• Classifying priorities, and
• Assessing cross-sector relevance.

This process established a solid basis for a long-term participatory approach, ensuring that future climate adaptation efforts in Granollers are collaborative, inclusive, and well-informed.

The workshop provided a solid knowledge base for addressing flood risks in Granollers, including:

• Identification of flood-prone areas (mapped during the workshop),
• Exposure and vulnerability assessments of critical service infrastructures, and
• Analysis of socio-economic sector vulnerabilities in flood zones.

However, further research is needed to:

• Improve the understanding of cascading effects across sectors, and
• Enhance data integration between local planning and global dynamic models.

Actions were classified along four dimensions to ensure a holistic approach:

• Adaptation,
• Mitigation,
• Environmental co-benefits, and
• Socio-economic co-benefits.

Additionally, knowledge gaps were assessed through stakeholder input at both local and supralocal scales to refine strategies and prioritize interventions.

The workshop in Granollers identified and mapped a range of actions—both existing and new—to enhance flood resilience, categorized into four key areas:

Infrastructure Upgrades:

• Improvements to sewer and stormwater infrastructure,
• Maintenance programs for flood-prone infrastructure,
• Railway network adaptation to withstand extreme weather, and
• Budget allocation for adaptation measures.

Nature-Based Solutions (NBS):

• Implementation of green roofs,
• Use of permeable pavements,
• Expansion of urban green spaces,
• Creation of floodable zones to manage excess water,
• River restoration projects, and
• Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS).

Governance & Management:

• Integration into the DUPROCIM planning priorities,
• Financial planning for the sewer master plan implementation, and
• Strategic alignment with the regional adaptation strategy.

Behavioral & Other Measures:

• Awareness and governance measures to foster public engagement, and
• Cross-sector collaboration mechanisms to ensure coordinated action.

All proposed actions were assessed for relevance and categorized as high, medium, or low priority across different sector categories to guide implementation.

The Granollers pilot serves as a key case study within the KNOWING project, linking a local model to a global dynamic model at the project level. Its primary role is to validate planning priorities related to flood risk, identify exposure and vulnerability conditions, and provide structured stakeholder input to the modeling process. To achieve this, spatial tools—such as maps with flood layers and blank maps—are used to visualize risks and gather localized insights. Additionally, a structured categorization approach ensures that modeling inputs are comprehensive, accurate, and actionable.

In this context, KNOWING plays a multifaceted role: it acts as a facilitator of multi-stakeholder dialogue, ensuring that diverse perspectives are integrated into the process; as an integrator of governance and modeling, bridging the gap between policy and technical analysis; and as a connector between local knowledge and the EU-level framework, aligning on-the-ground realities with broader strategic objectives. This approach ensures that the pilot not only addresses immediate flood risks but also contributes to scalable, evidence-based solutions for climate resilience.

The workshop in Granollers emphasized governance integration to ensure alignment with key strategic frameworks, including:

• The Catalan Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, and
• The Municipal Civil Protection Master Plan (DUPROCIM).

A structured participatory timeline was established to guide the process, with each workshop building on the previous one:

• First workshop – Kick-off to set the foundation,
• Second workshop – Identifying challenges,
• Third workshop – Developing a shared vision, and
• Fourth workshop – Defining pathways to 2050.

Communication and dissemination were prioritized through multiple channels, such as:

• The city council website,
• Twitter and LinkedIn,
• KNOWING project communication channels, and
• The DELIBERA participatory platform (currently under construction).

Next steps include:

• Sending a summary report to all participants,
• Inviting consented participants to the second workshop (focusing on regional challenges),
• Engaging external expert speakers to enrich discussions, and
• Improving facilitation dynamics to enhance participation.

To maintain momentum, a structured re-engagement protocol will be implemented, featuring:

• Periodic emails to keep stakeholders informed,
• Checklists to track progress, and
• Mini-questionnaires to gather ongoing feedback.

The core challenge in the region revolves around urban heat, drought stress, and water management, driven by the increasing frequency of:

• Heat waves,
• Water scarcity, and
• Urban overheating.

There is a strong link between climate adaptation, urban planning, and public health and quality of life, as rising temperatures and water shortages directly impact residents’ well-being and the city’s functionality.

Key regional characteristics further complicate this challenge:

• A dense urban fabric with limited green space in some areas,
• Growing pressure on water resources due to climate change, and
• The need to improve urban resilience while maintaining livability.

The central transformation challenge is to cool the city and reduce heat stress while managing limited water availability—a balancing act that requires innovative, integrated solutions.

Transferable next steps include:

• Defining priority intervention areas with high heat exposure to target efforts effectively,
• Connecting heat mitigation with water-sensitive planning to address both challenges simultaneously, and
• Focusing on measures that deliver visible health and quality-of-life benefits to ensure public support and tangible outcomes.

The stakeholder engagement in addressing urban heat and water management in the region involved a diverse group of participants, including:

• Municipal departments (urban planning, environment, water),
• Technical experts and planners,
• Regional actors, and
• Community-oriented stakeholders.

Key dynamics observed during the process highlighted:

• The strong role of the municipality as the main driver of climate action,
• A high awareness of climate risks at the local level,
• The importance of citizen acceptance for spatial interventions to succeed, and
• The need for coordination across planning and environmental departments to ensure coherence.

An important governance insight emerged: local administrations are key implementers of climate measures, but they require cross-sector alignment to be effective. Additionally, acceptance of interventions increases when they directly improve everyday urban life, making tangible benefits a priority.

Next steps to enhance collaboration and effectiveness include:

• Strengthening collaboration between water, planning, and climate departments,
• Integrating citizen perspectives early in project design to ensure relevance and support, and
• Building ownership within municipal structures to sustain long-term commitment.

Workshop discussions emphasized the need for a deeper understanding of key factors to address urban heat and water challenges effectively. This includes heat distribution across the city, water availability and consumption patterns, and the effectiveness of green infrastructure in cooling urban areas.

The city already possesses strong local planning knowledge and experience with sustainability and urban resilience initiatives, which provide a solid foundation. However, knowledge gaps remain, particularly regarding the quantified impacts of different cooling measures, long-term water resource scenarios under climate change, and the monitoring of implemented adaptation measures to assess their success.

A notable shift in approach is emerging—moving from individual measures to an integrated urban heat and water strategy that considers the interconnectedness of these challenges.

To advance this effort, the next steps include mapping urban heat hotspots and vulnerable populations, improving the integration of local climate data into planning processes, and developing monitoring indicators to track the performance of adaptation measures over time.

The Granollers Challenge phase played a key role in identifying priority intervention types for heat mitigation and connecting local knowledge with modeling needs, laying the groundwork for evidence-based decision-making.

KNOWING’s role is to support the simulation of critical factors, including:

• The urban heat reduction potential of proposed measures,
• The cooling effects of green infrastructure, and
• Water management strategies to address drought and flooding.

The expected contribution of KNOWING is to:

• Provide evidence for selecting the most effective cooling measures, and
• Help test integrated urban heat adaptation scenarios to evaluate their feasibility and impact.

Next steps include:

• Translating identified measures into modeling inputs to ensure accuracy,
• Testing different greening and cooling scenarios to compare outcomes, and
• Assessing the impact on vulnerable urban zones to prioritize interventions where they are most needed.

The workshop identified key intervention areas for addressing urban heat, with a focus on practical, scalable solutions that deliver immediate and long-term benefits.

High-priority measures include:

• Expansion of urban green infrastructure, such as trees, shaded areas, and parks,
• Cooling public spaces, particularly in schools, squares, and pedestrian zones,
• Water-sensitive urban design to improve water retention and reduce runoff, and
• Increasing permeable surfaces to mitigate heat absorption and flooding.

Medium-priority actions comprise:

• Green roofs and façades to enhance insulation and cooling,
• Shading solutions in dense urban areas to protect residents from extreme heat,
• Improved water reuse systems to optimize resource use, and
• Local cooling corridors integrated into urban planning.

Lower-priority or context-dependent measures involve:

• Larger structural redesigns of urban districts, and
• Major infrastructure transformations that require significant investment.

Key implementation insights highlighted that:

• Trees and shaded spaces are seen as the most effective and visible cooling tools,
• Water management must be tightly linked with greening strategies to maximize co-benefits, and
• Small-scale interventions can have strong cumulative effects, making them highly valuable.

Next steps include:

• Prioritizing greening in heat hotspots to target the most vulnerable areas,
• Combining shading with water-sensitive design solutions for integrated impact, and
• Focusing on scalable, low-threshold interventions that can be implemented quickly and cost-effectively.

The workshop highlighted key governance insights for transitioning from knowledge to action in urban heat adaptation. The municipality plays a central coordination role, but interdepartmental collaboration is essential to ensure that climate adaptation is embedded in long-term urban planning.

However, barriers remain, including:

• Limited space for new green areas,
• Budget constraints, and
• Competing urban development priorities.

Despite these challenges, the co-benefits of heat adaptation measures are significant, offering:

• Improved public health,
• Higher quality of life in public spaces,
• Increased climate resilience, and
• Social value through greener neighborhoods.

Immediate next steps include:

• Structuring workshop outcomes for the Vision phase,
• Focusing on priority heat mitigation interventions, and
• Strengthening integration into planning processes to ensure coherence.

To move forward, the following actions are prioritized:

• Developing an integrated heat adaptation roadmap to guide implementation,
• Aligning climate goals with urban development plans to create synergies, and
• Strengthening communication on the health and livability benefits of these measures to build public and political support.

Granollers’ long-term vision is to become a climate-neutral and climate-resilient city by 2050, with a strong linkage between climate action, quality of life, and the Urban Agenda 2030.

The strategic territorial focus centers on:

• Congost sub-basin flood resilience,
• Urban transformation and energy transition, and
• An integrated vision that combines mitigation and adaptation pathways, emphasizing multi-benefit interventions that deliver both environmental and social co-benefits.

A key contextual insight is that many actions are already framed within existing municipal strategies. The Vision phase primarily aims to align and structure these efforts toward the 2050 goal.

Transferable next steps include:

• Explicitly connecting climate neutrality with a quality-of-life narrative to ensure public buy-in,
• Aligning existing municipal plans under a single 2050 pathway for coherence, and
• Using river basin risks, such as flooding, as a structuring climate driver to guide prioritization and investment.

The vision for Granollers is shaped and supported by a diverse group of stakeholders, including:

• Municipal departments,
• Water and infrastructure actors,
• Academia and research bodies,
• Utilities and technical experts, and
• Civil society representatives.

Engagement characteristics reflected a strong foundation for collaboration, with:

• Around 18 stakeholders participating,
• Strong technical and municipal representation, and
• Good validation of Challenge workshop outputs, ensuring that the proposed actions align with local needs and expertise.

A key governance insight was the recognition of cross-department cooperation as essential for achieving the city’s climate goals. Additionally, there is a need to maintain long-term stakeholder coordination beyond workshops to sustain momentum and ensure continuity in implementation.

Quality-of-life priorities highlighted by participants included:

• Accessibility of resources, and
• Availability of essential services, underscoring the importance of equitable and reliable urban systems.

Next steps to strengthen stakeholder alignment and engagement include:

• Maintaining continuity in the cross-sector working group,
• Strengthening the involvement of social and community actors to ensure diverse perspectives,
• Using stakeholder surveys systematically to validate priorities and gather feedback, and
• Ensuring alignment between municipal departments to foster cohesive action.

The knowledge base and strategic orientation for Granollers’ regional transformation are grounded in the results from the Challenge workshop, a pre-survey on SDG relevance and quality-of-life factors, and a review of ongoing municipal initiatives.

The workshop identified key thematic orientations to guide the city’s development, including flood risk management in the Congost basin, energy transition in buildings, sustainable mobility and Low Emission Zones (LEZ), urban resilience and permeability, and administrative digitalization.

A strategic insight emerged: while many relevant measures have already been identified, the primary need is for better integration and sequencing of these actions. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) serve as a framing reference for prioritizing interventions.

To advance this agenda, the next steps include mapping existing projects against SDGs and 2050 goals to ensure alignment, identifying gaps between current plans and long-term resilience needs, strengthening the monitoring of quality-of-life indicators, and building integrated intervention packages rather than pursuing isolated actions.

The measures and strategic directions supporting Granollers’ long-term vision are structured along a clear timeline, ensuring a phased and scalable approach to climate resilience and sustainability.

Near-term priorities (before 2030) focus on immediate, high-impact actions, such as:

• Low Emission Zone implementation,
• Renewable energy deployment in public facilities,
• Sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS),
• Increased soil permeability requirements,
• Early flood warning systems, and
• Administrative digitalization.

By 2030, the city aims to achieve key milestones, including:

• Expansion of sustainable mobility infrastructure,
• Continued urban resilience projects,
• Energy efficiency improvements in public buildings, and
• Scaling local renewable production.

From 2030 to 2040, the focus shifts to strategic scaling, with priorities such as:

• Decarbonizing energy demand,
• Expanding EV/biogas charging infrastructure, and
• Further mobility shift measures.

In the final phase (2040–2050), the emphasis is on system transformation, including:

• Large-scale housing stock energy rehabilitation, and
• Continuous efficiency improvements across the building sector.

A key strategic pattern emerges:

• The early phase prioritizes flood management, mobility, and energy in public assets,
• The mid phase focuses on infrastructure scaling, and
• The long term centers on deep building stock renovation.

Next steps to ensure progress include:

• Sequencing measures along the 2030–2040–2050 pathway,
• Prioritizing high co-benefit flood and energy actions early,
• Preparing financing models for large-scale housing renovation, and
• Integrating permeability standards into planning rules.

The Vision Workshop provides a solid foundation for Granollers’ regional transformation by delivering:

• A validated list of interventions,
• A timeline of measures,
• Identified barriers and constraints, and
• SDG-linked priorities to guide decision-making.

KNOWING’s expected contribution is to enhance this foundation through:

• Scenario testing of flood resilience measures,
• Assessment of combined mobility-energy impacts, and
• Support for integrated urban transition pathways.

The analytical value of this approach lies in its ability to:

• Identify the most effective intervention bundles,
• Test feasibility under spatial and financial constraints, and
• Support evidence-based investment planning.

Next steps to operationalize this vision include:

• Translating the intervention timeline into model scenarios,
• Quantifying co-benefits across flood management, energy, and mobility,
• Using modeling to prioritize investment packages, and
• Feeding results back into municipal planning cycles to ensure alignment and implementation.

The vision for Granollers faces several key barriers that could hinder progress, including:

• High investment and maintenance costs,
• Infrastructure and spatial constraints,
• The risk of social exclusion during transition,
• Limited organizational capacity, and
• Economic constraints highlighted by stakeholders.

A structural risk is that implementation capacity may lag behind strategic ambition, potentially slowing down the city’s transformation.

However, there are positive signals that strengthen the feasibility of the vision:

• Strong stakeholder consensus,
• Clear alignment with the Urban Agenda 2030, and
• A well-defined early action portfolio to kickstart implementation.

Next steps to move forward include:

• Using Vision outputs for the KNOWING modeling phase to refine strategies,
• Developing a financing and implementation roadmap to secure resources, and
• Maintaining a stakeholder engagement platform to ensure continuous collaboration.

To address the identified challenges, the following actions are prioritized:

• Developing inclusive financing mechanisms to ensure equitable access to resources,
• Strengthening administrative capacity for implementation to bridge the gap between ambition and execution,
• Addressing spatial constraints early in planning to avoid delays,
• Keeping the cross-sector governance structure active to foster coordination, and
• Preparing policy-ready outputs from the modeling phase to facilitate decision-making.