Flood protection, heat mitigation measures, and new land-use planning concepts are meant to make communities more resilient to the effects of climate change. But what helps one region can be a disadvantage for others. At the same time, planners are increasingly relying on data-driven analyses and artificial intelligence, even though it is well known that AI systems can amplify social inequalities.
The #ConnectingMinds project “ADJUST” therefore addresses a central question: How can climate adaptation be designed in a just way when AI increasingly shapes planning, participation, and political decision-making processes?
Considering differences more fairly
To help answer this question, ADJUST is bringing together researchers from spatial planning, demography, and spatial AI (GeoAI) with practitioners. The teams are investigating how demographic change, regional differences, and potential biases in data and AI agents influence adaptation decisions. Specifically, the project investigates how different population groups are affected by heat, what adaptation options are available to them, and how AI-supported models can take these differences into account more fairly.
Basic research on geospatial AI
“ADJUST is not only a project on fair and sustainable climate adaptation; but is also conducting basic research on spatially-oriented AI. Specifically, ADJUST is combining AI research with spatial planning and population and migration research. Together with practitioners in the field, we're looking at how AI represents places and population groups - as well as their local and translocal perspectives - and how it can better reflect different regional realities of life, rather than making existing inequalities worse,” explains Krzysztof Janowicz, project coordinator and member of the University of Vienna’s "DataScience Network".
The goal is to develop a new equity framework for climate adaptation in Austria, which will support decision-makers in developing measures that are not only climate-resilient but also socially acceptable, fair, and responsible in their use of AI.
About the project
- Project title: Adaptation for Just and Sustainable Transitions (ADJUST)
- Coordination: Krzysztof Janowicz, Department of Geography and Regional Research, University of Vienna
- Consortium members and partner research institution: Meike Levin-Keitel, Patrick Sakdapolrak (both University of Vienna)
- Practice partners: DIALOGPLUS, Stadt-Umland-Management (SUM) Vienna, Planning Office Modul 5
- Approved funding: 1,2 million euros
- Project duration: 5 years
