LUDWIGSBURG REGION, GERMANY

Ludwigsburg Region (Germany)

Case Studies

Case study region: Ludwigsburg
Background: The administrative district (county) of Ludwigsburg is a Southern German region of 687 square kilometers with small to medium-sized cities of 540.000 inhabitants (786 per square kilometer), which belongs to the rapidly growing metropolitan region of Stuttgart, the capital of Baden-Württemberg. In a participatory process, the district has set itself the ambitious goal of becoming climate-neutral by 2050 and has drawn up a catalog of measures.

Goals & Objectives

IN-SOURCE addresses the Food-Water-Energy (FWE) challenges at local and regional levels with different densities and constraints including the low-density region Ludwigsburg. Energy and water both indicated in the UN sustainable development goals (SDG 6 and 7) are interdependent resources in many aspects. Energy is required for a range of water-related processes e.g. freshwater supply and wastewater treatment. The project aims to develop a modeling framework which will: (a) simulate impacts of land use, climate change and decentralization of FWE supply infrastructure under multiple constraints in order to ensure adequate energy, water, and food distribution and storage capacity; (b) configure alternative urban and regional scenarios toward integrated carbon neutral and sustainable infrastructure, based upon decentralized and increasingly autonomous FWE supply; (c) analyze CO2 equivalents in the food sector and develop reduction strategies.

Approach

The adoption of a common, shared and urban data model is crucial for the project. CityGML will be used as the only currently available open urban data model that allows spatial modeling with semantically different objects at multiple scales and urban thematic areas such as energy or utility networks. Here an example of a 3D CityGML model for one of the 39 communities located in the region of Ludwigsburg.

In a first analysis step, data of water and wastewater volumes and quality, energy consumption of treatment plants, transport and water disposal has been collected. Heating demand and PV potentials are available. The County's food metabolism has been analyzed and CO2 equivalents calculated.

Potential Outcomes/Progress

The HFT research team and their partners develop solutions for the implementation of a maximum renewable supply, efficient wastewater treatment with sewage sludge to energy projects, treated effluent reuse for irrigation in agriculture or a high regional food production ratio including food, green and forest waste to energy concepts. Partner AH consult focuses particularly on WWTP topics like optimization, renewable energy generation potentials and demand response potentials of waste water treatment plants.

Parallel to the technical elaboration of the city model, a participatory process will be launched by Landkreis Ludwigsburg’s Department 22. Different stakeholders will be involved in interviews and workshops to raise awareness for the FEW Nexus on a local scale, develop a co-creative vision and pave the way for innovative implementations. In order to make the stakeholders understand the system structure and interactions, a visualization toolbox will help to show different scenarios and facilitate decision processes. The scalability and transferability of prototype solutions to other cities are analyzed.

Planned Activities including workshop/conferences/publications

Using 3D CityGML Models for Building Simulation Applications at District Level. Improvements in simulation workflow to achieve a better fit between simulated and measured data.
Analysis of the water-energy nexus in a regional district.

Stakeholder

Zweckverband Gruppenklärwerk Häldenmühle, Marbach am Neckar. The WWTP is one of the one of the most modern and efficient in the district and serves as a benchmark.