Climate Adaptation Strategies in Cities

The physical manifestation of a city most commonly comes to mind when people are asked to define or describe a city. These physical characteristics include types and density of buildings and infrastructure, flows of resources, goods and services, as well as urban landscapes and ecosystems.

Climate Adaptation Part of the Urban Physical System

Ecosystems and climate adaptation measures that are implemented in cities are an increasing part of the urban physical system. Nature-based solutions such as swales, raingardens and green roofs are mapped on platforms as climatescan.org and the challenges and changes for implementation are depending on urban typologies.

Because of the expected problems cities have the task to take climate adaptation into account and to use all urban development projects and retrofitting or refurbishing of existing urban areas to step by step make the urban areas climate-proof. However, because there are so many other important requirements which need to be fulfilled when reconstructing a road or an urban area, climate resilience is often forgotten, or not fully implemented.

ClimateScan Database of Cities Climate Adaptation

To show that climate-resilient interventions have been implemented before, the platform ClimateScan with access to real project examples has been created. This and other platforms of examples can inspire different stakeholders. Analyzing the ClimateScan database, where solutions can be linked to the Neighbourhood typologies, allows monitoring of the national progress of climate adaptation in the Netherlands and to identify opportunities for climate adaptation. The database gives evidence-based proof to urban planners that over 5,000 projects are implemented in any type of district. The results of this study will help urban planners and stormwater managers with the designing, planning, climate adaptation measures with more confidence.

Get familiar with Climatescan and look in your own neighborhood to see what kind of solutions are mapped on climatescan. Feel free to add your project on climatescan.org by the app or desktop (join and add by projects).

References:

The two references give examples of the results of using neighbourhood typologies in Europe, Asia and Africa for analysing cities around the globe.

De Graaf-van Dinther (ed.) (2020) Climate resilient urban areas. Governance, design and development in coastal delta cities. Palgrave Pivot. Palgrave MacMillan, Publication in press Chapter by Kluck & Boogaard: Climate resilient urban retrofit at street level.

Boogaard F.C., (2020, in press) Analysing Climate Change Adaptation in Africa, Asia and Europe with the citizen science ClimateScan Platform. In: Leal Filho W., Luetz J., Ayal D. (eds) Handbook of Climate Change Management. Springer, Cham.

Restemeyer, B.; Boogaard, F.C. Potentials and Pitfalls of Mapping Nature-Based Solutions with the Online Citizen Science Platform ClimateScan Land 2020, 10, 5.