On December 17, 2015, the first Community of Practice meeting for the URBANFLUXES project was organized in Heraklion. Participants of the meeting included, besides the URBANFLUXES scientists, representatives of the Region of Crete and of the Municipality of Heraklion. After a welcome by G. Alexakis, Regional Councillor of Crete and a short film on URBANFLUXES, the URBANFLUXES scientists explained the function of the CoP, discussed the role of Earth Observation in urban climate studies, presented an overview of URBANFLUXES and focused on Heraklion morphology, structure and Local Climate Zones, as well as on the recently developed Wireless Sensors Network in the city. The participants had also the opportunity to see the real time installation of one of these in-situ measuring stations during the course of the meeting.
After this demonstration a panel discussion took place with contributions from all participants. The discussion was focused on how URBANFLUXES can support the climate change mitigation planning for the city of Heraklion. Furthermore, there was a round of questions to the URBANFLUXES Consortium on the potential of URBANFLUXES to support urban planning, urban environmental management, energy efficiency, urban governance and civil protection in the broader area of Heraklion.
A press release was given out by the Region of Crete, and the event was extensively covered by the local press: neakriti.gr , cretalive.gr.
