Since 2019, the German government has been promoting digital transformation in cities and municipalities. To this end, the Federal Ministry of Housing, Urban Development and Building (BMWSB) has launched the "Model Projects Smart Cities" (MPSC) funding program together with the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW). A total of 73 model projects are currently being supported with 820 million euros. The city of Constance on Lake Constance is one of the selected model municipalities in this funding program.

Constance is focusing on 23 smart green city project ideas

The digitalization of Constance is intended to ensure integrated, sustainable and community-oriented urban and regional development. In order to achieve the strategic objectives of "quality of life, participation and resources", "Smart Green City Konstanz" called on all Konstanz residents to play an active role in shaping a smart digital city. Following the one-year strategy phase, which ended in June 2023, Constance is now focusing on 23 specific project ideas.

Sustainably increasing the resilience of urban systems

One of these concerns the establishment of a central urban climate data platform that is intended to take into account all urban development policy climate goals, in particular modeling the urban climate for climate impact adaptation. The climate data platform is intended to sustainably increase the resilience of urban systems in the long term and improve the quality of life in Constance.

Weather data as a basis for greater sustainability and quality of life

In order to be able to record reliable climate data in real time in future, Constance invited tenders in August 2023 for the delivery and installation of twelve stationary IoT weather stations - with IP6x certification, LoRaWAN connectivity, solar panels for autonomous energy supply and an interface to the urban data platform. In addition to the parameters of air temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, wind speed, wind direction and air pressure, four of the required IoT weather stations should also provide continuous data on surface temperature. Based on the precise and continuous recording of these urban climate parameters, it will be possible in future to identify so-called "heat zones" or "cold zones" in urban districts and initiate effective countermeasures. This will also enable winter road maintenance to be more targeted in future.

ETO wins the contract for 12 IoT weather stations

As part of these measures, the ETO GRUPPE from neighboring Stockach was awarded the contract for twelve stationary IoT weather stations in September 2023. In addition, ETO will provide the city of Constance with twelve further weather and ground measuring stations for test operation. A new development from ETO, a mobile sensor rod, will also be used for the first time.

Monitoring systems for water, soil and air

Bonn-based ecoTech GmbH, a member of the ETO GROUP since May 2023, is also making a significant contribution to the IoT weather stations. It strengthens the expertise in the field of environmental measurement technology with measuring devices and monitoring systems for water, soil and air. ecoTech measuring buoys have also been providing reliable water quality data for Lake Constance for some time.

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