Urban Planning and Design for Building Neighborhood Resilience to Climate Change

Katarzyna Rędzińska,Monika Piotrkowska

doi:10.3390/land9100387

Katarzyna Rędzińska, Monika Piotrkowska

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/land9100387

Copy DOI

Journal: Land	Publication Date: Oct 12, 2020
Citations: 9	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Warsaw University of Technology

Abstract

The aim of the paper was to present the procedure of building neighborhood resilience to climate threats, embedded in planning (from the strategic to local level) and design process and focused on usage of natural adaptive potential. The presented approach encompasses: (1) the strategic identification of focal areas in terms of climate adaptation needs, (2) comprehensive diagnosis of local ecological vulnerability and natural adaptive potential to build adaptive capacity, and (3) incorporation of natural adaptive potential through an identified set of planning and design tools. For diagnosis and strategic environmental impact assessment, the multicriteria analysis has been elaborated. The described procedure is applied to the City of Warsaw on the strategic level, by elaboration of the ranking of districts in terms of priority to take adaptation actions based on climatic threats, demographic vulnerability, and assessment of Warsaw Green Infrastructure potential. For further analysis at the planning and design stage, the district with the most urgent adaptation needs has been chosen, and within its borders, two neighborhoods (existing and planned one) with diagnosed ecological sensitivity were selected. Both case studies were analyzed in terms of environmental conditions, urban structure, and planning provisions. It enabled identification of existing natural adaptive potential and assessment of its use. As a result, propositions for enhancing neighborhood resilience to climate change were suggested.

Highlights

Cities and their inhabitants are vulnerable to threats related to climate change, which have a negative impact on human health, quality of life, and urban infrastructure
We propose the procedure of building neighborhood resilience to climate threats embedded in planning and designing while focusing on usage of natural adaptive potential
The ranking of Warsaw will be negatively affected by climate change, in particular the increase in number and the adaptation priority shows differences among districts

Summary

Introduction

Cities and their inhabitants are vulnerable to threats related to climate change (thermal and hydrological in particular), which have a negative impact on human health, quality of life, and urban infrastructure. Creating resilient neighborhoods should be the result of properly implemented urban planning and design [3]; for this to happen, planning documents should contribute significantly, because they shape the natural performance of planned areas. This is problematic in terms of the conceptualization of resilience and its implementation in the urban realm. For a resilient city to be understood as a socioecological system, it should consist of physical and social sub-systems. The physical sub-systems encompass the natural and built components of an urban structure. Since system structure determines overall system behavior, systems should not be managed only for productivity and for resilience [6]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion