Abstract
While climate change is one of the greatest environmental threats the entire world faces today, rapid urbanization is making both the community and ecosystem more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Estimating urban resilience is thus one of the important processes to understanding the current and potential future risks of cities providing practical policies and qualified strategies to cope with climate change effects. This study presents a disaster risk analysis in Southern Taiwan at the municipal and zone levels using the Climate Disaster Resilience Index (CDRI). The index was estimated at both the zone and city scale of three coastal cities, namely Tainan, Kaohsiung, and Pingtung. The CDRI approach consists of five different dimensions (physical, social, economic, institutional, and natural), with several parameters and variables reflecting the abilities, strength, and threats of case study cities to cope with potential climate-related disasters. The findings show that, while the physical dimension has the highest resilience among cities, the lowest average scores and the least resilience belong to the natural dimension. The overall CDRI score for different cites also revealed various capabilities, shortcomings, drawbacks, and potential risks of neighbored cities in the same region. It is expected that the findings of this study shall serve as an urban planning tool to recognize the sectors within an urban context that are more or less resilient, enhance actions at the local level, and support future planning decisions.
Highlights
Despite the international efforts on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as the main causes of global warming, climate change is still projected to continue over the century [1]
While all cities face risks from a range of natural and human-induced disasters, coastal areas are highly threatened by the consequences of both climate and anthropogenic changes, as over 40% of the global population lives within 100 km from the coast [2]
Southern Taiwan is an ideal example of a region with large prospects for growth, and it is situated in a coastal area where climate-induced disasters mostly occur
Summary
Despite the international efforts on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as the main causes of global warming, climate change is still projected to continue over the century [1]. While all cities face risks from a range of natural and human-induced disasters, coastal areas are highly threatened by the consequences of both climate and anthropogenic changes, as over 40% of the global population lives within 100 km from the coast [2]. Among different Asian affected areas by climate change, Taiwan is a vulnerable region facing the challenges of intensified typhoon intrusions and steady sea level rise [6]. Southern Taiwan is an ideal example of a region with large prospects for growth (population and economy), and it is situated in a coastal area where climate-induced disasters mostly occur. Climatic hazards have been intensified by climate change and, affected the inhabitants of coastal areas on the southern shoreline of Taiwan [8]
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