Spatial-temporal evolution of urban form resilience to climate disturbance in adaptive cycle: A case study of Changchun city

Abstract

In an era of global climate change, urban form has significant impacts on resilience and vulnerability to uncertain climate disturbances. However, spatially quantifying urban form resilience across different adaptive phases is still in the exploratory stage. This study presented a general framework to build a bridge between the analysis of urban form resilience and climate disturbances. After transforming this general framework into the specific framework for urban form resilience at the mesoscale to climate disturbances in winter city, an evaluation index system comprised of three dimensions of “Absorption-Adaptation-Recovery” was constructed to investigate the evolution of urban form resilience to climate disturbances in Changchun city, which experienced a progression from exploitation (r) phase to conservation (k) phase over the past 100 years. The morphological region was adopted as the basic unit for resilience evaluation. The results showed that, from r to k, almost all urban form regions represented a significant decline in absorption capacity and a dramatic rise in recovery capacity. The adaption capacity also experienced a decreasing trend, but it was not prevalent in every urban form region. The increase in resilience gained by the enhanced recovery capacity could not offset the decrease in resilience caused by the weakened absorption capacity and adaption capacity. In different periods, the emphases of resilience control for urban form regions were different. This study hopes to provide scientific guidance for resilience management in cities.