Climate Adaptation In Cities Research Articles

Designing nature to be a solution for climate change in cities: A meta-analysis

Nature-based solutions (NbS) are designed as a win-win strategy to address societal challenges while providing biodiversity, social, and economic benefits. However, uncertainties and gaps persist, particularly regarding the criteria that define a NbS measure and the specific requirements for a solution to be fully recognized as such, which limit the full potential of these strategies in practice. Another persistent issue is the lack of data on strategy responses across different implementation scales (local, city, regional) and climatic zones (temperate, arid, tropical). This article provides an overview of the potential of NbS to promote climate adaptation in cities. Our meta-analysis, which compiled 7163 records from 89 articles worldwide, indicates that integrating NbS strategies with traditional approaches (gray infrastructure and sustainable technologies) is the most effective response to concurrently address multiple climate-related hazards. Flooding had the highest impact at 35.7 %, followed by increased runoff at 30.5 %. Peak flow and water pollution both had an impact of 10.3 %, while temperature increase accounted for 5.7 %, and decreases in thermal comfort made up 5.0 %. We concluded that all evaluated strategies reduced the impact of climate-related hazards, but this reduction was twice as large when incorporating NbS (18.6 % vs 8.1 %). We also demonstrate that this effect is observed under projected climate scenarios, reinforcing the role of NbS in making cities more resilient and sustainable.

Urban Greening Management Arrangements between Municipalities and Citizens for Effective Climate Adaptation Pathways: Four Case Studies from The Netherlands

The transition towards nature-based cities has increasingly become a central focus in political–environmental agendas and urban design practices, aiming to enhance climate adaptation, urban biodiversity, spatial equilibrium, and social well-being as part of the ongoing socio-ecological urban transition process. Climate adaptation in cities is a complex problem and one of the main collective challenges for society, but the relationships between city managers and citizens as to urban green care still face many challenges. Parks design guided by technical-expert and globalised criteria; inflexibility from bureaucratic inertia; and citizens’ demands to participate in the urban green transition, sometimes without the necessary knowledge or time, are some of the challenges that require further research. In this study, we examine four long-lasting approaches to green-space management in four cities in the Netherlands, ranging from municipality-driven to community-driven management forms, and encompassing diverse spatial configurations of greenery within the urban fabric. Utilising the theoretical lens of the Social–Ecological Systems Framework, we employ a multiple-case-study approach and ethnographic fieldwork analysis to gain a comprehensive understanding of the norms, collective-choice rules, and social conventions embodied in each urban green management arrangement. The purpose of this research is applied, that is, to provide urban managers and decision-makers with a deeper understanding of drivers to promote effective collaborative management approaches, focusing on specific organisational rules that may contribute to more sustained planning and maintenance pathways for urban green spaces, regardless of changes in political leadership or significant external funding sources. The results of the investigated cases show that long-lasting collaborative management of forests and parks has established a set of collective-choice rules for resource transfer between municipalities and citizens, including non-monetary resources (such as pruning-training courses or guided tours that attract tourists and researchers). Additionally, these arrangements have been favoured by the existence of legal norms that enable co-ownership of the land, and monitoring and sanctioning mechanisms that offer a slightly different interpretation from the evidence identified so far in the scientific literature on collective resource management and organisational studies.

Expectations of i-Tree Eco as a tool for urban tree management in Nordic cities

While urban forests are recognized as imperative toward climate adaptation in cities and provide health and recreational benefits to citizens, municipal tree officers often struggle to find successful governance arrangements and budget support toward long-lasting investment and implementation in new planting schemes and protection of existing trees. Since its release in 2006, i-Tree Eco has helped urban tree officers worldwide to find tangible leverage in the means of quantitative mapping, numeric measures, and economic values of ecosystem services. This may in turn help ease gridlocks and potentially support constructive dialogues across sectors, with decision-makers and public engagement. With the release of i-Tree Eco v. 6 in Europe 2018, 13 Nordic cities were engaged in a larger research project with ambitions to use i-Tree Eco for the purpose of retrieving numeric and monetary data of the biophysical structures and ecosystem services of the urban forest. Based on questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, we present the results from the Nordic i-Tree project with a focus on expectations, opportunities, and potential barriers experienced in using i-Tree Eco in urban forest management. The most prominent expectation and foreseeing opportunities were recognized toward using numeric information on trees to change policies and support cross-sectoral collaboration while reaching politicians and the public. Identified barriers involved how limited resources are spent on public outreach and how information about the project to relevant stakeholders were not distributed from the beginning which may have implications on the dissemination of results. As some important ecosystem services, e.g., cultural services, are not captured by i-Tree Eco, presenting the partial value of urban trees may pose also potential risks to cross-sectoral collaboration. Other findings conclude that although numeric information on ecosystem services is seen as beneficial in terms of communicating with different stakeholders, a deeper understanding toward the criteria used in the valuation process and the potential risks of numeric approaches may provide more context-specific applications.

Integrating blue-green infrastructure in urban planning for climate adaptation: Lessons from Chennai and Kochi, India

Nature-based solutions, such as reviving blue-green infrastructure (BGI), for climate adaptation in cities have been gaining global attention. In the case of India, the rapid urbanization since the end of the twentieth century has exacerbated the impact of climate change at significant environmental, social, and economic costs. Coastal cities in India commonly face climate change related hazards of flooding, rise in sea level, and urban heat islands. This article has assessed the usefulness of scientific information and community knowledge in planning, reviving, and maintaining BGI to make it a successful climate adaptation practice in coastal cities. The existing waterways and water bodies in India's coastal cities are a network linked to the green infrastructure that has been altered by sprawling urbanization. In response to Sustainable Development Goals 11 and 13, the cities of Kochi and Chennai have begun a process of recovering their BGI for greater resilience. This research has detected a shift in the social and administrative perception of BGI as a valuable resource for climate adaptation in recent times. Actions in backwaters and canals, promoted by Chennai and Kochi municipal corporations, present new steps toward mainstreaming adaptation of BGI into the local regulatory framework.

Governance learning from collective actions for just climate adaptation in cities

Environmental policy research fails to integrate procedural and recognitional justice perspectives and collective actions in governance learning for just climate adaptations. Drawing on the insights of two cities experiencing climate impacts differently, Bergen (Norway) and Istanbul (Turkey), this paper assesses how collective actions influence different levels of governments (local to national) to learn from these actions to implement just climate actions in their localities. Using environmental justice (specifically recognition and procedural) and policy learning literature, we contextualize a three-governance learning typology that emerges through collective actions that may trigger governance structures for policy integration: governance learning by resisting, co-opting, and expanding. We identify what kind of learning is introduced to the existing governance structures in Bergen and Istanbul, and how that learning shapes or is shaped by the governance structures, local government in Bergen and local to national governments in Istanbul, while developing climate adaptation policies and actions. Overall, this paper shows what types of knowledge and information are incorporated or ignored after collective actions and how power mediates interactions between actors across multiple urban settings for just climate adaptation.

Climate adaptation to Multi-Hazard climate related risks in ten Indonesian Cities: Ambitions and challenges

Indonesian coastal cities are faced with a double imperative to urbanize quickly and to adapt to climate-related disasters. These disasters include droughts, storms, regular floods, tidal waves, and water pollution. This article investigates how ten small- and medium-sized coastal cities in Indonesia are developing resilience strategies to cope with disaster risks. It approaches their level of exposure, the current impacts of climate change, and the existing, local resilience strategies or response. It identifies key discussion points related to the implementation and the feasibility of these strategies. We argue in this article that the priorities are severalfold, and that local governments are increasingly faced with trade-offs when selecting specific interventions and neighborhoods or districts to prioritize to the detriment of others. The current coping strategies seem insufficient to reduce, respond to, and recover from climate-related impacts as well as address the question of vulnerabilities. The population in the coastal areas and in informal settlements, mainly the poor population, is more directly exposed to these climate-related hazards. The local research highlights the difficulties of multi-stakeholder cooperation, the inevitable trade-offs or difficult choices, and the lack of adequate instruments in climate adaptation. Finally, this article calls for more specific timely research on climate adaptation in cities.

Towards Climate Adaptation in Cities: Indicators of the Sustainable Climate-Adaptive Urban Fabric of Traditional Cities in West Asia

One of the most important criteria for a city’s sustainability is climate adaptation. Simultaneously, traditional cities in West Asia have achieved harmony between architecture and the environment, depending on the experience and culture of the local community, indicating a fundamental stage of adaptation to the environment and climate. This research attempted to study and examine the traditional urban fabric, in order to diagnose its significance and ability to solve contemporary problems, such as the lack of comfortable and suitable urban housing environments in hot–dry climate areas, which cover most of West Asia. We used two research methods to create an integrated vision to investigate the indicators and their effect on urban form. Four case studies in the urban fabric and housing communities of West Asia’s hot–dry research areas were chosen for the analytical study. Furthermore, inductive analysis was carried out to determine the most critical sustainability parameters in the particular urban fabric. The climate response parameters of the study cities were evaluated using Ecotect simulation tools, and the determinants of sustainability indicators were quantitatively evaluated to assess each indicator’s impact on the sustainability of the urban fabric. Our findings have implications for assessing the relevance of climate adaptation in the sustainability of cities and their effectiveness in combating the impacts of climate change.

More than planning: Diversity and drivers of institutional adaptation under climate change in 96 major cities

A key challenge for effective, ongoing urban climate adaptation is to adapt institutions within urban governance. While an extensive foundation of empirical knowledge on urban climate adaptation has accumulated over the last decade, our image of institutional adaptation continues to be dominated by a focus on planning. Whilst understandable, this can obscure a fuller range of areas in which institutional adaptation to climate change is being pursued. Furthermore, methodological path dependency in large-N analysis via a common focus on analyzing formal planning documents risks a skewed perspective as such documents may only offer a partial view. Building on the rich range of work to date assessing climate adaptation in cities, and notwithstanding continued major gaps such as in small-medium cities, we now need to find ways to examine the diversity of institutional adaptation occurring in practice, and to comparatively draw on the situated interpretive knowledge of case experts within individual cities to do so. With this aim in mind, this paper explores institutional adaptation in a specific domain (urban water) in a sample of 96 major cities across six continents through a survey of 319 case experts, examining the diversity of institutional adaptation across contexts and exploratively probing its drivers. Findings show that multiple forms of institutional adaptation are being jointly pursued in cities across all continents, leaning towards ‘softer’ rather than ‘harder’ forms, but nonetheless revealing a wide range of activity. Patterns in drivers suggest a political explanation for institutional adaptation (e.g. involving change agents and political pressure) rather than a rational one (e.g. involving response to climate-related risks and/or extreme events). Overall, there is a need to combine parsimony with expanded interpretive sensibility in advancing large-N research on institutional adaptation diversity in comparative perspective.

Qualifying the green city: professional moral practices of trying urban rainwater forms

AbstractThis article explores how the green, sustainable city is built in situations of uncertainty though professional practical engagements of testing and trying, and how these are formed by moral investments in professional work. Following recent studies investigating professional work and moral agency, the article engages with Terence Halliday’s famous distinction between science-based and normative professions. Contrary to this argument, the article argues that the practice of engineers, the clearest example of the so-called ‘science-based’ profession, is fraught with moral questions and practices. By drawing on French pragmatic sociology, the article conceptualizes the different ways engineers and others work in situations of uncertainty as different modes of trying. In these modes, professionals rely on different moral principles and ideas for evaluating and judging the professional solutions. As such, the article contributes to the sociology of professions by suggesting a new analytical frame for analyzing moral work as fundamental to professional practice in situations of uncertainty. Empirically, the article builds on fieldwork observations and interviews with professionals from an ongoing research project on Danish climate adaptation in cities and urban rainwater management.

Systematic review of smart cities and climate change adaptation

PurposeUnderstanding policy consequences for cities is very important in an urban setting, especially in this era of developing solutions for grand challenges. Climate change adaptation and smart cities are emerging topics in the climate change and sustainability domain. Therefore, this paper aims to achieve a better understanding of policy consequences and exploring synergies of climate change adaptation and smart cities are valuable for both research and practice.Design/methodology/approachThis paper systematically reviews synergies of smart city applications in urban climate change adaptation literature. A systematic literature review and content analysis are carried out to answer the research questions and a theoretically based smart cities concept matrix with synergetic coproduction theory is used to assess the empirical studies.FindingsKey findings are that the model of synergetic coproduction could identify the benefits co-existing in smart city and climate change adaptation. While smart people and smart government play the fundamental roles, synergies could co-occur in other smart city dimensions. Smart city applications in climate change adaptation could increase competitiveness in cities by exploiting the opportunities as well as reducing the harmful risks.Research limitations/implicationsThe outcomes of the smart city applications in climate change adaptation aim to contribute to the exploration of developing indicators for smart city studies in climate change.Practical implicationsThe findings provide successful examples for city governments and stakeholders to identify the low-hanging fruits as well as win-win adaptations. The results could also serve as the exploration of indicators in the field of smart city in climate change. The smart cities concept with the synergetic coproduction theoretical model could be further developed into a sustainability accounting and reporting methodology for cities to improve their sustainability information management.Social implicationsThe successful cases showing benefits could serve as examples for public-private partnerships to develop strategies to exploit opportunities in smart city applications and climate change adaptation. The review results also show that the integrated approach of smart city and climate change adaptation is possible and beneficial – hopefully the city managers and policymakers will continue to apply the integrated approach with smart city and further climate action agenda.Originality/valueThis study combines two emerging topics in the assessment, climate change adaptation and smart cities, and represents a new way of assessing literature and possibly policy outcomes for the cities. By using the theoretical framework from smart cities and theory of coproduction, a theory-based framework is developed for assessing the empirical studies of climate adaptation in cities. The findings from the systematic literature review indicate relations among smart city dimensions in a clear manner and also identify the synergies of smart cities and climate adaptation.

Det proto-jurisdiktionelle sprog

In this article, we inquire into the role played by language and core, politicized concepts in inter-professional coordination around expert work in transition. Empirically, we analyze how engineers and landscape architects cooperate around and compete for work related to rainwater management and climate adaptation in cities. We draw on qualitative empirical material, including around 30 in-terviews with involved professionals, focusing on the significance ascribed to the concept of "LAR", local drainage of rainwater, in the wider climate adaptation field since the 1990s. Using Andrew Abbott's (1988, 2005) theory of professions, we show how the story of LAR embodies a wider dynamic of 'proto-jurisdictional' emergence, with new professional roles and languages. Ab-bott places control over work tasks center stage in analyzing professional relations; and this includes 'ecological' considerations for how professions relate to political and academic institutions. On this basis, we show how professional actors use the specific LAR concept as a way of claiming compe-tence and forge alliances with others in the climate adaptation field. In reference to Abbott's notion of the 'knowledge systems' of professions, the implication we draw is that we need to understand professional languages in relation to broader jurisdictional struggles and translations between politi-cal and academic discourses.

Climate adaptation in cities: What trees are suitable for urban heat management?

Vegetative enhancement in the form of tree planting has been found to be a highly effective strategy for cooling urban environments, yet as cities continue to warm, the suitability of urban environments for some tree species is changing with shifting hardiness zones. Trees are assigned to hardiness zones, which are based on the average annual minimum temperature that a species can thrive. In recent decades, human induced global warming has shifted the location of hardiness zones across the United States. Our study examines the historical range of ∼200 common US tree species and how climate change-induced shifts in hardiness zones are affecting historical tree ranges in 20 highly populated metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) with high rates of urban heat island growth over time. MSAs are areas with at least one urban area of 50,000 or more people and adjoining territory that has a high degree of social and economic integration with the core. We found 6 of the 20 MSAs lost tree species, with the Atlanta (13.51%) and Washington DC (3.61%) MSAs suffering the greatest losses. If historical rates of hardiness zone migration continue, a simple projection exhibits >6% average tree species loss across all MSAs in the study. As hardiness zones continue to migrate northward with climate change, heat island mitigation and other environmental management strategies employing green infrastructure must identify tree species that are likely to remain well adapted to urban climates many years into the future.

Stimuli for climate adaptation in cities: insights from Philadelphia – an early adapter

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify stimuli for climate adaptation in cities and more specifically to explore whether different stimuli inspire different governance approaches to climate adaptation – e.g. dedicated (adaptation as a new policy field) or mainstreaming (integrating in existing policy fields). Design/methodology/approach – For this explorative case study research, an early adapter was selected: Philadelphia (USA). By reconstructing the organization of two climate adaptation programs, the authors have identified stimuli and whether these influence the city’s governance approach. The reconstruction is based on data triangulation that consists of semi-structured interviews with actors involved in these programs, policy documents and newspaper articles. Findings – The research illustrates the importance of stimuli such as strategically framing climate adaptation within wider urban agendas, political leadership and institutional entrepreneurs. Moreover, the research reveals that it is often a combination of stimuli that triggers a governance approach and that there is a possible link between specific stimuli and governance approaches, proposing that some stimuli will trigger a dedicated approach to climate adaptation, while others initiate a mainstreaming approach. Originality/value – An in-depth understanding of stimuli of climate adaptation is currently lacking in literature, as most of the studies have focused on barriers to climate adaptation. Moreover, still little is known about what explains why certain governance approaches to climate adaptation emerge.

Assessing the vulnerability of urban forests to climate change

Climate adaptation is being embraced by many municipalities worldwide. An element of this is the planting and protection of urban trees. However, the fact that climate change will also have an impact on urban trees has been largely overlooked. We argue that climate vulnerability assessments are necessary for addressing climate adaptation in urban forests and contribute to successful climate adaptation in cities. We review and integrate the literature on climate vulnerability and urban forests to explore how the general notion of urban forest vulnerability to climate change can be developed into an operational framework for undertaking a vulnerability assessment. The framework characterizes climate exposure, impact, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, as well as nonclimatic drivers and factors, in urban forests. The most important themes in this discussion include urban tree species selection and diversity, naturalization, resource access, social awareness and engagement, budget and economic valuation, liability issues, and governance structures. Climate change vulnerability assessments help us understand how and why urban forests are vulnerable to climate change, identify future areas for research, and determine what adaptation measures could be included in urban forest management. These assessments help bring climate change to the forefront of the decision-making process and contribute to successful urban adaptation to climate change.