Assessment of climate change mitigation and adaptation in cities

Abstract

Cities are faced with a number of sustainability challenges in the context of climate change. There is an urgent need to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cities if ambitious mitigation targets are to be met. Meanwhile, cities are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change unless adaptation plans can be put in place. The need to connect climate change adaptation and mitigation with broader assessment of sustainability is becoming increasingly recognised. This paper describes an urban integrated assessment facility developed by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, which simulates socio-economic change, climate impacts and greenhouse gas emissions over the course of the twenty first century at the city scale. The urban integrated assessment facility adopts a broad-scale systems approach to urban development and sustainability assessment. It incorporates a multi-sectoral model of the regional economy, hierarchical city-scale spatial interaction model and modules for assessment of climate impacts, adaptation options and greenhouse gas emissions. The paper demonstrates how the urban integrated assessment facility quantifies synergies and conflicts between adaptation to climate change and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions in order to improve decision making and facilitate the development of portfolios of planning policies that together have a realistic prospect of achieving sustainable outcomes for cities

Modified Scorecard Method for Evaluating Climate Aspects of Urban Transport Systems

“…Moreover they argued that motorways are significant parts of urban transport systems due to the extensive and rapid flow of goods and humans, adaptation strategies have to pay special attention to these infrastructure elements. This latter finding shows the strong relevancy of mitigation considerations and actions in effective and comprehensive adaptation actions (Walsh et al, 2011;Reckien et al, 2014;Chappin and van der Lei, 2014). Dulal et al (2011) emphasized the role of urban planning in transport-oriented mitigation strategies, since vehicle-use can be decreased, use of public transport can be increased, therefore air pollution and congestions can be prevented or at least reduced by integrating climate-related actions into the planning stage.…”

Adapting cities for a changing climate: an integrated approach for sustainable urban development

“…The assessment of the multidimensional concept of vulnerability shows difficulties and uncertainties, largely debated in the field of natural hazards and related, for example, to the need for taking into account the different facets of vulnerability (physical, systemic, economic, etc.) as well as the adaptive capacities of an urban context [11,23,24]. Due to the persisting lack of communication among scholars belonging to different scientific communities, the significant results achieved in the field of natural hazards are scarcely mirrored in current adaptation planning.…”

“…In this field, although methodologies for analysing and assessing vulnerability are still heterogeneous, the concept has been widely recognized as a multi-dimensional one, comprising different aspects (physical, systemic, social, economic, environmental, institutional, etc. ), constantly interacting in time and space [11,23,24,28]. Moreover, the three plans provide aggregate risk evaluations, generally expressed in monetary terms, paying scarce attention to the different aspects of urban vulnerability and including little or no vulnerability maps (generally only maps of the exposed elements to the different hazard factors are available).…”

“…Mitigation strategies, which aim at reducing GHG emissions, generally result from international agreements, provide global benefits -although implemented at national or local levels -and refer to a long-term perspective. Adaptation strategies, which aim at adjusting natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects [11], are strongly characterized as site-specific measures. Moreover, they generally refer to the scale of the impacted system; thus, they are defined and implemented at local level -although sometimes based on wider common platforms at national or upper level -and provide local benefits [9,12,13].…”

Interactive use of simulation models for collaborative knowledge construction

“…It is therefore harder to prescribe this in standardized solutions, as is indeed possible in the case of solutions for sewer and drainage systems. Therefore, participants from departments and organizations that are active in spatial planning are involved in the decisionmaking process to explore opportunities to solve water problems as well (Walsh, Dawson et al 2011). To involve these parties, often multi-stakeholder work sessions are organized, for example to define problems, choose measures and divide responsibilities to take actions, or else less defined work sessions such as brainstorming sessions (Linkov, Wood et al 2009).…”