The anthropogenic climate change has reached North Rhine-Westphalia and its effects are explicitly noticed in nature and environment. Long-standing measurements show that the temperatures increase and intensity and distribution of precipitation change. This has consequences: Hence the growing seasons of domestic plants shift, waters and ground temperatures increase and especially in the cities and metropolitan areas it leads to an increased heat stress for the population during summer times.

Therefore North Rhine-Westphalia – as the first state - has already developed a climate impact monitoring in 2011. Since that time the State Office for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection NRW (LANUV) has been documenting the development of the climate and its effects in North Rhine-Westphalia by means of indicators from different fields of environment. Because only if we realize the influence of the climate change on nature and environment at an early stage, we are able to react in time and to respond appropriately to changes and risks. The indicators are annually updated and are available on the internet at http://www.klimafolgenmonitoring.nrw.de .

With the aid of this brochure we wish to provide the citizens of North Rhine-Westphalia a current overview of the indicators of the climate impact monitoring

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• LANUV-Info 38: Klimafolgenmonitoring