Chair for urban climate resilience
Welcome to the Chair for Urban Climate Resilience!
At the Chair of Urban Climate Resilience, we explore the question of how urbanized societies can become climate resilient. We see climate change as a symptom of a multifaceted planetary crisis, which is often expressed in public discourse with the term Anthropocene (Keck & Flachs 2022).
We consider urban climate resilience to be an overall societal search process focusing on human settlement structures with the aim of reducing social vulnerability, increasing societal adaptive capacities and developing the potential for socio-ecological transformation (cf. Keck & Sakdapolrak 2013, UN Habitat 2021).
In order to ensure acceptable living conditions for future generations, comprehensive climate protection measures and effective adaptation strategies to the consequences of climate change are required at global, national and local level. These measures are the result of social negotiation processes that can generate both synergy effects and conflicting goals, as well as winners and victims.
Based on our stance as critical social scientists, we see our main task as researching and helping to shape these negotiation processes so that they are as effective and democratic as possible and contribute to greater socio-ecological justice.
A future-proof and sustainable approach to our living environment and the protection of vulnerable population groups are a priority for us.
at one glace
Announcements
Latest news
Rouven Kaiser to Lead His Own Session and Present a Keynote at the 2026 DGSW Annual Conference
Rouven Kaiser from the Chair of Urban Climate Resilience led a session on AI in game studies education at the first DGSW Annual Conference in 2026 at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences.
Chair of Urban Climate Resilience at the 2026 Annual Meeting of the German Ethics Council in Weimar
“Designing Resilience” Conference at TU Darmstadt
How digital services are changing eating habits and research is tackling it
Delivery services, social media, and new expectations relating to status are changing what people in large cities eat. A research project at the University of Augsburg has researched this dynamic in India and Mexico and developed an app that should help people make their eating habits more mindful, healthier, and sustainable.
A New Perspective on Resources – What Can Object-Oriented Ontology Achieve?
Article in Spanish by Merle Müller-Hansen and colleagues
current publications
Müller-Hansen, Merle, Addu, Kiran, Keck, Markus (2025): From the Wealthy-Healthy-Chubby Nexus to Outside Foods-Changing Food Consumption Practices in Indian and Mexico. Social & Cultural Geography https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2025.2498944
Müller-Hansen, Merle, Bazán, Wendy, Landherr, Anna (2025) El sufrimiento socioambiental por la muerte de abejas como eje de la movilización colectiva maya en Hopelchén, Península de Yucatán (https://ichan.ciesas.edu.mx/el-sufrimiento-socioambiental-por-la-muerte-de-abejas-como-eje-de-la-movilizacion-colectiva-maya-en-hopelchen-peninsula-de-yucatan/)
Müller-Hansen, Merle (2025): Digital Food Consumer Citizenship Beyond the Indian State. Geographien Südasiens https://doi.org/10.11588/hasp.1524.c22059
Purwins, Sebastian, Keck, Markus (2025): The bureaucratic life of urban climate resilience. Urban Studies https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980251322008
Grewer, Janes, Keck, Markus, Zscheischler, Jana (2024): Different interpretations of sufficiency in climate-protection strategies: a typology based on 40 pioneering municipalities in Germany. Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 20(1), 2350216 https://doi.org/10.1080/15487733.2024.2350216
Müller-Hansen, Merle (2024): Urban food environments in India and Mexico. Juliane Dame, Mehwish Zuberi, Carsten Butsch (Eds.): Aktuelle Forschungsbeiträge zu Südasien: 13. Jahrestagung des AK Südasien, 03.-04.02.2023, Eberswalde (pp. 14-18). Heidelberg: Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing. https://doi.org/10.11588/hasp.1364.c20558
Müller-Hansen, Merle, Mahne-Bieder, Johannes, Keck, Markus (2023): Interdisciplinary research on food environments: the key to transforming unhealthy food consumption practices and unsustainable food systems. Die Erde, 154(1-2), 49-53. https://doi.org/10.12854/erde-2023-656
Hertig, Elke, Keck, Markus (2023): Deutschlands Städte im Klimawandel. In: Geographische Rundschau, 23(7-8): 6-9.
Purwins, Sebastian (2023): Same same, but different: Ghana's Sinohydro deal as evolved 'Angola Model'?. Insight on Africa https://doi.org/10.1177/09750878221114381
Purwins, Sebastian (2023): Totope und das Meer: über Verwundbarkeiten und Anpassungen an der Küste von Ghana. In: Geographische Rundschau, 2023(1-2), 52-55.
Purwins, Sebastian, Grashey-Jansen, Sven: Natur- und Kulturlandschaft im Werdenfelser Land. In Thomas Schneider (Ed.): Geographische Exkursionen im näheren und weiteren Umland von Augsburg. Augsburg: Institut für Geographie, Universität Augsburg.
Contact & Mailing Address
Chair of Urban Climate Resilience (at the Center for Climate Resilience)
Universität Augsburg
Universitätsstraße 12
86159 Augsburg
Phone: +49 821 598 4868
Email: urbane-klima@geo.uni-augsburg.de
Directions & Parking
The Chair of Urban Climate Resilience is located in the Center for Climate Resilience, Building I on the
Detailed directions for arriving by bus, train, or car can be found (at the bottom of the page)
Parking: P5 + P6
