Urban Adaptation Research Articles

When Governing Urban Waters Differently: Five Tenets for Socio-Environmental Justice in Urban Climate Adaptation Interventions

Municipalities, their utilities and resource managers are designing and implementing policies and programs toward climate adaptation, which means governing urban water resources differently. Urban water managers are thus expanding their roles and responsibilities through the installation and maintenance of green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) systems. This system expansion is perhaps more striking for water utilities administering GSI-related programs because they acquire a role that has an impact on how residents and neighborhoods will differentially experience the effects of climate change. Through an in-depth qualitative study of a GSI program in Tucson, Arizona, USA, we contribute to the socio-environmental justice framework with specific attention to distributive, procedural, recognition, interactional, and mobility justice. We highlight that a socio-environmental justice approach requires resource managers and decision-makers to recognize and respect the ways in which people’s everyday relationship to water and water infrastructure is impacted by culturally mediated social norms and values, as well as legacies of exclusion and inclusion in urban development and resource governance. Thus, we argue that discussions around water equity in urban water governance need to be placed within a socio-environmental justice framework to address historical inequalities and ensure these are not reproduced through GSI.

What Does Scholarship on Institutionalizing Urban Climate Action Say?

With in-depth knowledge of the urban climate governance literature, this paper reviews the relevant scholarship on institutionalizing climate action in cities and urban areas to understand which aspects are well-researched, providing guidance to scholars in the field. The results show that articles addressing urban climate adaptation make up a large of the selected literature. The analysis has identified ideas about how innovation may be reinforced. Therefore, one critical step is to explicitly investigate how global North and South cities are testing new institutional arrangements and experimenting with adaptation and mitigation policies, plans, and processes as they seek to develop and advance their climate goals.

Developing adaptation outcome indicators to urban heat risks

Climate scenarios predict that temperatures will rise and the subsequent heat periods that negatively impact human well-being will increasingly become common. The impact of heat in cities can be adapted to through urban planning, economic investments and other measures. The outcomes of adaptation should be monitored, for example, through indicators. However, adaptation outcome indicators are lacking research and development. We report a co-development process of adaptation outcome indicators that can be used to assess adaptation progress to urban heat risk. We use existing literature, a focus group discussion and a questionnaire to co-develop 16 indicators in the City of Helsinki, Finland. Developed indicators take into account key urban characteristics, including social vulnerability, state of the environment, infrastructure, green–blue infrastructure, economic resources, and knowledge and awareness. This study provides a framework for cities to develop their adaptation monitoring strategy and illustrates a novel empirical case study of derivation process of urban heat risk adaptation indicators.

Anthropocene Destitution

This article situates the concept of destituent power as a historically specific, still unfinished problematization of political thought and practice in the Anthropocene. It explores multiple, conflicting understandings and manifestations of destitution as they relate to climate change, civilizational breakdown, and political practice, suggesting that experimental practices of destitution as “exiting” are increasing in number and political potential alongside infrastructural and ecological crises. However, too often readers and theorists overemphasize this form-of-life-centric and use-centric version of the concept, thereby risking reproducing the political impasses the concept seeks to overcome, mirroring dominant counterrevolutionary depictions of life in the Anthropocene. In contrast, bringing work by Idris Robinson and Alexandre Monnin together with urban climate adaptation examples, this article explores an emergent destitution-as-negation perspective that attempts to respond to these impasses. The article concludes by asking what it might mean and require to destitute the Anthropocene, as not only an environmental matter but also one dominated by particular governmental, economic, and knowledge systems.

Evaluating the effects of green roofs and green façade as an urban heat island adaptation strategy

The present study investigated the potential cooling effect of green roofs and green façades on a residential neighborhood in Athens during a typical summer day. The numerical model ENVI-met was employed to simulate the thermal environment of the study area at the existing configuration. Then, different design interventions focusing on the application of green façade and green roofs on the rooftops of the existing buildings were developed in order to evaluate the potential amelioration of the adverse thermal conditions. Thermal conditions were assessed based on basic meteorological parameter values and well-known thermal indices estimations. Results showed that at a two-floor building rooftop, the thermal conditions improved only slightly. Most importantly, the inclusive green roofs did not configure a significant cooling effect compared to that of low-height vegetation existing in the exclusive green roofs. Finally, results showed that the synergetic effect of green roofs and green façade produced a greater amelioration of thermal comfort conditions, compared to that produced by the green roofs solely. The greatest amelioration of thermal sensation conditions was achieved by the combination of inclusive green roofs and green façade.

Assessment of Urban Adaptability to Climate Change in the Pearl River Delta Based on the PSR Model

Assessment of Urban Adaptability to Climate Change in the Pearl River Delta Based on the PSR Model

How can research on past urban adaptations be made useful for sustainability science?

Non-technical summaryCities in the distant past – as documented by archaeologists and historians – provide an extensive record of urban successes and failures, yet this information has had little impact on the field of sustainability science. I explore two reasons for this situation. First, these scholars have often failed to synthesize their data scientifically, and, second, they have not approached the transfer of past knowledge to present research in a rigorous manner. I organize discussion of these issues around three arguments for the present value of past cities: the urban trajectory argument, the sample size argument, and the laboratory argument.Technical summaryI explore the different ways historical and archaeological data can be deployed to contribute to research on urban sustainability science, emphasizing issues of argumentation and epistemology. I organize the discussion around three types of argument. The urban trajectory argument exploits the long time series of early cities and urban regions to examine change at a long time scale. The sample size argument views the role of early cities as adding to the known sample of settlements to increase understanding of urban similarities and differences. The laboratory argument uses data from past cities to explicitly test models derived from contemporary cities. Each argument is examined for three contrasting epistemological approaches: heuristic analogs, case studies, and quantitative studies. These approaches form a continuum leading from lesser to greater scientific rigor and from qualitative to quantitative frameworks. Much past-to-present argumentation requires inductive logic, also called reasoning by analogy. Sustainability scientists have confused this general form of argument with its weakest version, known as heuristic analogs. I stress ways to improve methods of argumentation, particularly by moving research along the continuum from weaker to stronger arguments.Social media summaryBetter methods of argument allow the past record of urban success and failure to contribute to urban sustainability science.

Urban adaptation to climate change and resident awareness. A Polish perspective

Urban adaptation to climate change and resident awareness. A Polish perspective

Towards adaptive and transformative finance for urban areas? A framework to analyse the responsiveness of adaptation finance to urban challenges in the global South

Funds-based mechanisms for urban adaptation finance are still underexplored. Addressing this gap, as well as the need for greater learning about ‘how’ urban adaptation finance operates, this paper proposes a conceptual framework for such analysis that considers complexity, uncertainty, transformation and vulnerability. We analyse 39 urban projects financed by Climate Adaptation Funds (CAFs) using a qualitative approach. The findings indicate the ongoing dominance of national governments at all stages of the funding cycle, and of a focus on “hard” adaptation measures, but also a diverse set of stakeholder relationships involved in CAF finance which offers potential for greater multi-stakeholder and multisectoral management of complexity. Few projects, however, address the management of uncertainty. While upscaling from projects is a common preoccupation, catalysing effects across sectors are limited, and transformative mechanisms for addressing vulnerability are limited to consultation with vulnerable groups. Innovations are highlighted which merit further exploration through case study analysis.

Assessing urban adaptability: The key is in the land use plan

Urban adaptability describes the capability to adapt private and public urban elements to necessary changes resulting from technological development, policy transformations, environmental crises and changes in fashion and taste. This paper ties urban adaptability with urban regeneration. We hypothesize that the need for comprehensive institutional intervention, often in the form of a new overall plan, to process the regeneration of veteran residential neighborhoods, indicates an inherent, anti-adaptive component in their structure. Moreover, institutional regeneration plans contain, alongside physical improvements, an opportunity to reformulate urban connections and enhance the neighborhood’s shape, thus potentially transforming an anti-adaptive urban fabric into an adaptive one. The study shows that land use plans affect the degree to which neighborhoods are adaptable for years to come. Based on this, the research aims to develop an evaluation tool for assessing (anti)adaptability in urban regeneration plans, measuring the degree to which they enhance an existing urban structure and provide better chances for spontaneous regeneration in the future. The tool is grounded on analyzing three spatial layers: (A) street pattern, (B) built elements, (C) land use. We demonstrate the tool in five cases, comparing original neighborhood plans to regeneration plans of residential neighborhoods in five Israeli cities. The results show that it is possible to predict anti-adaptability and anticipate it as part of the planning process. However, we expose that not all regeneration plans utilize the opportunity to create a more adaptive urban fabric but keep producing the same anti-adaptive structure.

Interactions among spatial configuration aspects of urban tree canopy significantly affect its cooling effects

Increasing urban tree canopy (UTC) has been widely recognized as an effective means for urban heat mitigation and adaptation. While numerous studies have shown that both percent cover of UTC and its spatial configuration can significantly affect urban temperature, the pathways governing these relationships are largely unexplored. Here we present a cross-city comparison aiming to fill this gap by explicitly quantifying the pathways on which percent cover of UTC and its spatial configuration affect land surface temperature (LST) using structural equation modeling (SEM), based on UTC mapped from high resolution imagery and LST derived from Landsat thermal bands. We found: 1) Although both the direct and indirect pathways significantly affected LST regardless of scales and cities, the direct pathway played a more important role in affecting LST in Baltimore, Beijing, and Shenzhen. In contrast, an opposite result was found in Sacramento, likely due to the effects of buildings and their interactions with UTC. 2) Similarly, the direct pathway of mean patch size (MPS) and mean shape index (MSI) played a more important role in affecting LST than their indirect effects via altering edge density (ED). Our results highlighted the necessity for discomposing the effects of different spatial configuration variables on LST. Understanding the pathways through which UTC affects LST can provide insights into urban heat mitigation and adaptation.

City-Heat Equity Adaptation Tool (City-HEAT): Multi-objective optimization of environmental modifications and human heat exposure reductions for urban heat adaptation under uncertainty

Rising global temperatures and the urban heat island effect can amplify heat-related health risks to urban residents. Cities are considering various heat adaptation actions to improve public health, enhance social equity, and cope with future conditions beyond past experience. We present the City-Heat Equity Adaptation Tool (City-HEAT), which suggests optimal investments for mitigating urban heat and reducing health impacts through modifications of built (cool roofs/pavements) and natural (urban afforestation) environments and reductions of people's heat exposure (cooling centers). The optimization considers multiple public health and social objectives under a wide range of future scenarios. An application to Baltimore, MD (USA) demonstrates how City-HEAT can generate Pareto-efficient multi-year heat adaptation plans. We quantify effectiveness-efficiency-equity tradeoffs among alternative plans and show the advantages of flexible decision-making. City-HEAT can be adapted to the natural, built, and social environments of other cities to support their urban heat adaptation planning, recognizing local objectives and uncertainty.

Breeding in the pandemic: short-term lockdown restrictions in a European capital city did not alter the life-history traits of two urban adapters

Humans are transforming natural habitats into managed urban green areas and impervious surfaces at an unprecedented pace. Yet the effects of human presence per se on animal life-history traits are rarely tested. This is particularly true in cities, where human presence is often indissociable from urbanisation itself. The onset of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, along with the resulting lockdown restrictions, offered a unique, “natural experiment” to investigate wildlife responses to a sudden reduction in human activity. We analysed four years of avian breeding data collected in a European capital city to test whether lockdown measures altered nestbox occupancy and life-history traits in terms of egg laying date, incubation duration and clutch size in two urban adapters: great tits (Parus major) and blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus). Lockdown measures, which modulated human presence, did not influence any of the life-history traits investigated. In contrast, the interaction between year and tree cover, a distinct ecological attribute of the urban space, was positively associated with clutch size, a key avian life-history and reproductive trait. This highlights the importance of inter-year variation and habitat quality over human activity on urban wildlife reproduction. We discuss our results in the light of other urban wildlife studies carried out during the pandemic, inviting the scientific community to carefully interpret all lockdown—associated shifts in biological traits.

Urban adaptation impact on outdoor thermal comfort in educational complexes

Motives: This paper investigates the urban adaptation elements (vegetation cover, water bodies, and different shading patterns) effect on the outdoor thermal comfort for pedestrians in the educational complexes. Aims: The aim of the research is to determine the impact of urban elements on outdoor thermal comfort in an educational campus with a hot-dry climate, the city of Babylon as an example, The research methodology depends on the ENVI-met program to simulate the case study. Results: The results showed that urban adaptation elements which are the soft components of the environment include (vegetation cover, water bodies, and different shading patterns) can reduce the temperature by about 3 degrees Celsius in addition to reducing the mean radiant temperature by 8 degrees Celsius and reducing the sky view factor (SVF) by 20%.

Integrating public health in European climate change adaptation policy and planning

ABSTRACT The study assesses the extent to which public health is integrated into European national and urban climate change adaptation policy and planning. We analyse national adaptation documents from the 27 European Union member states and interview city-level experts (n = 17) on the integration of three categories of adaptation efforts: general efforts to minimize health impacts related to climate change, targeted efforts to enhance resilience in health systems, and supportive efforts to foster the potential of the first two categories. At a national level, general efforts to address vector-borne diseases and heat-related illness are covered comprehensively, whereas efforts addressing several climate-related health risks are neglected (e.g. water-borne diseases, injuries from extreme weather and cardiopulmonary health) or overlooked (e.g. malnutrition and mental health). Targeted efforts to inform policy decisions, such as carrying out research, risk monitoring and assessments, are often described in detail, but efforts to manage day-to-day health care delivery and emergency situations receive little attention. At the urban level, health issues receive less attention in climate adaptation policy and planning. If health topics are included, they are often described as indirect benefits of adaptation efforts in other sectors and not perceived as the priority of the involved authorities. This effectively means that general and targeted efforts are the responsibility of other sectoral departments, while supportive efforts are the responsibility of the national government or external organizations. As a result, at an urban level, climate-related health system adaptation is not a policy aim in its own right, and many potentially high health risks are being ignored. In order for health risks to be better integrated into adaptation policy and planning, it is critical to interconnect national and urban levels, reduce sectoral thinking and welcome external expertize and facilitate large-scale data collection and sharing of health and climate indicators. Key policy insights We recommend focussing on cooperatively drafting strategies for integrating health issues into climate policy and planning with stakeholders at the national and urban levels, in different policy sectors and in society. Policy planners can build on the strengths of adaptation documents from other countries or cities and take note of any weaknesses. We advocate to foster co-benefits for health and climate action of various adaptation measures (e.g. by promoting active mobility and urban greenery, health impacts related to heat, (mental and physical) stress and air pollution are reduced). Large-scale data collection and sharing of health and climate indicators should be facilitated to support learning and pro-active decision-making.

Heritage sites, climate change, and urban science

We describe a new research perspective on the relationship between climate change and heritage sites around the world. Existing efforts focus mainly on either the climate-related damages to cultural heritage resources, or the role of local and indigenous communities in using and preserving heritage sites. We argue that heritage sites also provide an empirical record of past successes and failures in the ways that cities and settlements have responded to environmental shocks and stresses. The scientific analysis of the relevant archaeological remains can generate hypotheses on the range of factors that facilitated or hindered resilience and influenced successful and unsuccessful urban adaptations. This knowledge, in turn, may help illuminate the drivers of urban adaptations to climate change today. The consideration of heritage sites as sources of insights for urban science and urban climate science adds a new dimension to the nexus between climate change research and heritage sites; it does not substitute for existing approaches.

Unplanned urban built-up growth creates problem in human adaptability: Evidence from a growing up city in eastern Himalayan foothills

The unprecedented and unplanned urban growth in Indian cities is a great threat to the sustainable urban development and urban resilience. Therefore, the present study emphasized in identifying rapid urban growth, future resilience, and human adaptability in Siliguri Municipal Corporation (SMC) area. For this purpose, the land use land cover (LULC) map has been prepared for 2001, 2011 and 2021 and then cellular automata-Markov chain (CA-MC) with four suitable fuzzy factors have been incorporated to simulate the prediction of built-up areas in 2031. Finally, future human adaptation susceptibility zone map has been prepared using the prediction-adaptation-resilience (PAR) approach. The built-up area has been increased by 10.25 km2 in last 20 years while other natural landscape has been reduced by the encroachment of urban pavement surface towards peripheral regions. The ward wise human adaptability zone indicates that total 14 municipal wards will be in most vulnerable situation within 2031. Consequently, water logging, sewage issues, congestions, environmental issues, solid waste issues will be the most challenging issue. So, the outcome of this study may be useful for the policy makers to take proper planning for built-up area development and give attention to increase the green space in the down town region.

Measuring the accessibility deprivation of concentrated resettlement communities in China: An integrated approach of space syntax and multi-criteria decision analysis

China's rapid urbanization involves the large-scale relocation of rural villagers and the production of concentrated resettlement communities in urban areas. This new urban population's post-resettlement adaptation and socio-economic situations raise concerns for urban scholars and policymakers alike. This paper invokes the concept of deprivation and aims to establish indices of multiple deprivations (IMDs) for such communities. In doing so, this research use accessibility as a proxy and integrates the space syntax approach with multi-criteria decision analysis to construct the IMDs of concentrated resettlement communities in Hangzhou, China. The findings suggest that material deprivation may not be the primary concern for residential segregation of resettlement communities in urban areas. Besides, the accessibility to different services reflects diverse deprivation patterns among resettlement communities. Moreover, various stakeholder groups' perceptions of deprivation may lead to different results of the IMDs. The diverse criteria or domains of deprivation contribute differently to the deprivation, which requires a tailored treatment strategy when constructing IMDs, such as the sensitivity analysis used in this research. The proposed measurement of deprivation has important policy implications for sustainable urban development in China.

Development of A Framework for Urban Heat Adaptation in 15-Minute City

Urban heat has challenged many cities with serious environmental, economic, social and health consequences. Urban heat also deteriorates the achievement of 15-Minute City (FMC) which is a basic community unit to apply planning and design practices to achieve safety, sustainability, resilience and inclusion required by the goal of Sustainable Cities and Communities (Goal 11) by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Heat adaptation strategies are of importance to secure people from heat-induced immediate impacts. However, there are limited studies on how to integrate heat adaptation strategies into FMC for avoiding heat-induced impacts. Therefore, this paper aims to construct a framework that can support the integration of urban heat adaptation (UHA) into FMC planning and design. The framework is expected to combine FMC and UHA goals, identify urban heat impacts, recognise heat-induced impact influential factors, suggest heat adaptation strategies and optimise adaptation performance. Following this conception, an analysis of FMC and UHA goals, heat-induced impact and assessment indicators, regulatory factors, heat adaptation strategies, and sensitivity assessment models has been conducted. Finally, a comprehensive FMC-UHA framework for addressing urban heat challenges is generated. Overall, this framework provides a reference for creating cool 15-minute cities, as well as guidance on how to avoid heat impacts, health and safety inclusion, low-carbon travel, and outdoor productivity.

Stretching or conforming? Financing urban climate change adaptation in Copenhagen

Cities worldwide are struggling to build resilience to the risks posed by climate change for their infrastructures, economies and quality of life. However, no city government has sufficient capacities to fund the adaptations required to ensure such resilience alone. Copenhagen’s efforts to secure financing for adaptation and mitigation are investigated, focusing on its innovative arrangements for funding projects to protect against extreme rainfall and flooding. A mixed-methods approach explores how municipal actors and investors accessed finance for supporting transition to a climate-adapted city. Mobilising concepts from the multilevel perspective to analyse the governance and market conditions that facilitate or impede such financing, this paper contributes to sustainable transition theory and the assessment of different funding approaches. The case study confirms the comprehensiveness and effective implementation of the city’s plans, especially its innovative financing product for adaptation to urban flooding. However, this approach has knock-on effects for tackling other climate hazards, partnerships and investment urgency. Although extreme rainfall events in 2011–13 opened a valuable ‘window of opportunity’ for change at the system landscape level, catalysing a radical shift in government policy and investment, this disruption did not elicit a commensurate response from the city’s finance sector. <em><strong>Practice relevance</strong></em> Several challenges exist for municipalities and investors when financing urban adaptation. Innovation is needed not only in technology but also in approaches to financing and investment. A key strength of Copenhagen’s adaptation approach lies in its innovative financing arrangements for funding an effective response to the risks of extreme rainfall, <em>i.e</em>. combining measures to protect against urban flooding with improvements in the urban public realm. A sustainable transition model can help guide cities in planning and funding adaptation to climate change. Recommendations include equal prioritisation by all actors of climate adaptation and mitigation; the removal of constraints on private sector participation; government engagement with a diverse set of private capital providers; experimentation with different financing mechanisms; the development of bankable adaptation projects; and efforts to monetise and unlock the value of adaptation projects.