Abstract
The Green Book is not a book, but a novel, practical online planning tool to support the adaptation of South African settlements to the impacts of climatic changes and severe events. It provides evidence of current and future (2050) climate risks and vulnerability for every local municipality in South Africa (including settlements) in the form of climate-change projections, multidimensional vulnerability indicators, population-growth projections, and climate hazard and impact modelling. Based on this evidence, the Green Book developed a menu of planning-related adaptation actions and offers support in the selection of appropriate actions from this menu to be integrated into local development strategies and plans. The second half of this article describes the steps involved in the process of developing and structuring this menu of actions and explains how the information contained in the Green Book can be used to promote the planning of climate-resilient settlements in South Africa.
Highlights
A 2019 study by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) projects that the total South African population will grow by an additional 19 to 24 million between 2011 and 2050, totalling between 58 and 62 million people
Local government plays a key role in climate-change adaptation, because successful responses depend on local policies, plans, and processes
Providing evidence and information to support climatechange adaptation in cities and towns, as well as mainstreaming climate-change adaptation into local government planning instruments and processes, is essential to support short- and long-term planning for sustainable development
Summary
A 2019 study by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) projects that the total South African population will grow by an additional 19 to 24 million between 2011 and 2050, totalling between 58 and 62 million people. The Green Book is not a hard copy book, but an interdisciplinary, openaccess, online tool that was developed to support local municipalities in South Africa to adapt settlements to the likely current and future impacts of climate change (CSIR, 2019: online). It is structured into three main components: i. The article provides the South African context to urban climatechange risks and vulnerabilities, which is based on new research by the CSIR It describes the steps involved in the process of developing and structuring a unique menu of adaptation actions to support local municipalities in South Africa, with integrating climate-change adaptation into the planning of human settlements.
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