Blue-Green Infrastructure Planning in Stalowa Wola: Building Climate Resilience with Aerial Data

EAASI Company: OPEGIEKA

Project Overview

Stalowa Wola, an industrial city in southeastern Poland, faces mounting environmental pressures, including flooding, urban heat islands, air pollution, and limited access to green spaces. Strengthening climate resilience while improving residents’ quality of life became a strategic priority for the municipality.

To address these challenges, OPEGIEKA, an EAASI member based in Poland, developed a comprehensive blue-green infrastructure concept grounded in high-resolution aerial mapping. The project demonstrates how crewed airborne data can provide the analytical foundation for climate adaptation strategies and evidence-based urban planning.

By transforming aerial imagery into actionable environmental intelligence, the initiative enabled the city to move from fragmented environmental measures to an integrated resilience strategy.

Technical Solution

The project followed a structured three-phase methodology: inventory, analysis, and design.

Inventory Phase: OPEGIEKA created a detailed database of green spaces and land cover through photointerpretation of high-resolution aerial and satellite imagery. This provided an accurate baseline of existing vegetation, impervious surfaces, and the spatial distribution of environmental assets across the city.

Analysis Phase: Building on this airborne-derived dataset, advanced remote sensing and spatial modelling techniques were applied, including:

• Rainfall and runoff simulations to identify flood-prone zones

• Urban heat island and hotspot detection to locate temperature anomalies

• Accessibility analysis of green areas

• Impervious surface detection

• Ventilation corridor analysis

• Tree crown segmentation for detailed vegetation assessment
  

These simulations and spatial analyses relied on the precision and completeness of the aerial data, enabling a level of environmental modelling not achievable through ground surveys alone.

Design Phase: Using the analytical results, OPEGIEKA developed a strategic blue-green infrastructure concept. The plan identified optimal locations for new parks, rain gardens, water retention reservoirs, and green corridors. It also defined evidence-based management principles for urban greenery, directly linked to the findings derived from aerial analysis.

The final deliverables included a comprehensive report with thematic maps, analytical results, recommendations, and performance indicators. Results were presented to city officials and stakeholders through workshops and online sessions, ensuring transparency and practical application in future planning decisions.

Project Benefits

The project provided Stalowa Wola with a scientific and spatially consistent foundation for climate adaptation and urban development.

By integrating aerial mapping with advanced modelling, the city can now:

• Better understand flood risk and hydrological behaviour

• Identify and mitigate urban heat islands

• Improve accessibility to green spaces

• Plan new environmental infrastructure based on measurable indicators
  

Rather than relying on isolated interventions, municipal authorities gained a holistic framework for managing green and blue infrastructure as interconnected systems.

This case exemplifies how aerial surveying extends beyond visual mapping, enabling sophisticated environmental modelling and strategic urban design.

Future Outlook

As cities across Europe face mounting climate pressures, data-driven planning is essential. The Stalowa Wola project illustrates how crewed aerial surveying provides the high-resolution, comprehensive datasets required for resilient urban transformation.

By embedding airborne-derived intelligence into planning frameworks, municipalities can transition from reactive measures to proactive climate governance. The methodology applied in Stalowa Wola offers a replicable model for cities seeking to integrate environmental resilience into long-term spatial strategies.

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Learn more about how EAASI members apply crewed aerial surveying technologies to address environmental, urban, and societal challenges in our Use Cases series, showcasing real-world applications across Europe and beyond.