Cities on the Coast and Patterns of Movement between Population Growth and Diffusion

Sea level rise and high-impact coastal hazards due to on-going and projected climate change dramatically affect many coastal urban areas worldwide, including those with the highest urbanization growth rates. To develop tailored coastal climate services that can inform decision makers on climate adaptation in coastal cities, a better understanding and modeling of multifaceted urban dynamics is important. We develop a coastal urban model family, where the population growth and urbanization rates are modeled in the framework of diffusion over the half-bounded and bounded domains, and apply the maximum entropy principle to the latter case. Population density distributions are derived analytically whenever possible. Steady-state wave solutions balancing the width of inhabited coastal zones, with the skewed distributions maximizing population entropy, might be responsible for the coastward migrations outstripping the demographic development of the hinterland. With appropriate modifications of boundary conditions, the developed family of diffusion models can describe coastal urban dynamics affected by climate change.

Download Full-text

Interrogating Climate Adaptation Financing in Zimbabwe: Proposed Direction

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13126517 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (12) ◽

pp. 6517

Author(s):

Innocent Chirisa ◽

Trynos Gumbo ◽

Veronica N. Gundu-Jakarasi ◽

Washington Zhakata ◽

Thomas Karakadzai ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Developing Countries ◽

Climate Adaptation ◽

Global Climate ◽

Methodological Approach ◽

Extreme Weather Events ◽

Infrastructure Development ◽

Low Carbon ◽

Coastal Zones ◽

Resource Base

Reducing vulnerability to climate change and enhancing the long-term coping capacities of rural or urban settlements to negative climate change impacts have become urgent issues in developing countries. Developing countries do not have the means to cope with climate hazards and their economies are highly dependent on climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture, water, and coastal zones. Like most countries in Southern Africa, Zimbabwe suffers from climate-induced disasters. Therefore, this study maps critical aspects required for setting up a strong financial foundation for sustainable climate adaptation in Zimbabwe. It discusses the frameworks required for sustainable climate adaptation finance and suggests the direction for success in leveraging global climate financing towards building a low-carbon and climate-resilient Zimbabwe. The study involved a document review and analysis and stakeholder consultation methodological approach. The findings revealed that Zimbabwe has been significantly dependent on global finance mechanisms to mitigate the effects of climate change as its domestic finance mechanisms have not been fully explored. Results revealed the importance of partnership models between the state, individuals, civil society organisations, and agencies. Local financing institutions such as the Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe (IDBZ) have been set up. This operates a Climate Finance Facility (GFF), providing a domestic financial resource base. A climate change bill is also under formulation through government efforts. However, numerous barriers limit the adoption of adaptation practices, services, and technologies at the scale required. The absence of finance increases the vulnerability of local settlements (rural or urban) to extreme weather events leading to loss of life and property and compromised adaptive capacity. Therefore, the study recommends an adaptation financing framework aligned to different sectoral policies that can leverage diverse opportunities such as blended climate financing. The framework must foster synergies for improved impact and implementation of climate change adaptation initiatives for the country.

Download Full-text

Can climate adaptation solutions fix the urban heat island? An assessment of the thermal conditions during heat waves in Vienna impacted by climate change and urban development scenarios for the mid-21st-century

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-8668 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Paul Hamer ◽

Heidelinde Trimmel ◽

Philipp Weihs ◽

Stéphanie Faroux ◽

Herbert Formayer ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Urban Heat Island ◽

Heat Wave ◽

Air Temperature ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Climate Adaptation ◽

Heat Waves ◽

Heat Island ◽

Human Thermal Comfort ◽

Urban Heat

Climate change threatens to exacerbate existing problems in urban areas arising from the urban heat island. Furthermore, expansion of urban areas and rising urban populations will increase the numbers of people exposed to hazards in these vulnerable areas. We therefore urgently need study of these environments and in-depth assessment of potential climate adaptation measures.We present a study of heat wave impacts across the urban landscape of Vienna for different future development pathways and for both present and future climatic conditions. We have created two different urban development scenarios that estimate potential urban sprawl and optimized development concerning future building construction in Vienna and have built a digital representation of each within the Town Energy Balance (TEB) urban surface model. In addition, we select two heat waves of similar frequency of return representative for present and future conditions (following the RCP8.5 scenario) of the mid 21st century and use the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) to simulate both heat wave events. We then couple the two representations urban Vienna in TEB with the WRF heat wave simulations to estimate air temperature, surface temperatures and human thermal comfort during the heat waves. We then identify and apply a set of adaptation measures within TEB to try to identify potential solutions to the problems associated with the urban heat island.Global and regional climate change under the RCP8.5 scenario causes the future heat wave to be more severe showing an increase of daily maximum air temperature in Vienna by 7 K; the daily minimum air temperature will increase by 2-4 K. We find that changes caused by urban growth or densification mainly affect air temperature and human thermal comfort local to where new urbanisation takes place and does not occur significantly in the existing central districts.Exploring adaptation solutions, we find that a combination of near zero-energy standards and increasing albedo of building materials on the city scale accomplishes a maximum reduction of urban canyon temperature of 0.9 K for the minima and 0.2 K for the maxima. Local scale changes of different adaption measures show that insulation of buildings alone increases the maximum wall surface temperatures by more than 10 K or the maximum mean radiant temperature (MRT) in the canyon by 5 K.&#160; Therefore, additional adaptation to reduce MRT within the urban canyons like tree shade are needed to complement the proposed measures.This study concludes that the rising air temperatures expected by climate change puts an unprecedented heat burden on Viennese inhabitants, which cannot easily be reduced by measures concerning buildings within the city itself. Additionally, measures such as planting trees to provide shade, regional water sensitive planning and global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in order to reduce temperature extremes are required.We are now actively seeking to apply this set of tools to a wider set of cases in order to try to find effective solutions to projected warming resulting from climate change in urban areas.

Download Full-text

A Possible Circular Approach for Social Perception of Climate Adaptation Action Planning in Metropolitan Cities

Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions - Green Energy and Technology ◽

10.1007/978-3-030-57764-3_11 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 155-169

Author(s):

Alessandro Scuderi ◽

Luisa Sturiale ◽

Giuseppe Timpanaro ◽

Giovanni La Via ◽

Biagio Pecorino

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Climate Adaptation ◽

Evaluation Model ◽

Action Planning ◽

Urban Context ◽

Adaptation Measures ◽

Implementation Phase ◽

Multi Criteria Evaluation ◽

Set Up

AbstractOne of the factors that will affect the livability of cities and the overall citizens’ quality of life in the future is certainly climate change. Urban areas will play a fundamental role in the commitment against climate change and will have to develop appropriate adaptation actions, in accordance with the European Strategy against climate change, including the planning and implementation of Green Infrastructures (GIs). They produce various environmental and social benefits in the urban context. Various studies have shown that citizenship involvement at all levels is necessary for the evaluation of the sharing of the proposed projects. The research proposes an innovative methodological model to support administrations in the strategic planning choice of GIs according to a shared and circular approach. To perform a multi-layer assessment, the multi-criteria evaluation will be combined with the circular evaluation model called Green City Circle. The evaluation is set up as a circular process, followed by a first investigative phase, followed by a proactive phase of solutions and an implementation phase up to a final stage of evaluation of the results and strategies for long-term sustainability. The study was carried out in the city of Catania to test a planning and management tool for GIs envisaged by the administration as win–win climate adaptation measures.

Download Full-text

LIFE URBANGREEN: Innovative technological platform to improve management of green areas for better climate adaptation

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-20662 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Paolo Viskanic ◽

Alice Pasquinelli ◽

Alessio Fini ◽

Piotr Wezyk

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Remote Sensing ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Climate Adaptation ◽

Climate Impacts ◽

Extreme Weather Events ◽

Urban Green ◽

Urban Green Areas ◽

Green Areas

Climate change is a serious and cross-cutting issue: urban areas are particularly sensitive to climate impacts, especially to heatwaves, floods and droughts. Typically, urban phenomena (such as the &#8216;urban heat island effect&#8217; &#8211; where the urban area is significantly warmer than the surrounding rural areas) and the impacts of extreme weather events demonstrate the high vulnerability of cities.Specific urban adaptation strategies are therefore needed to make cities more resilient. In this context, green areas and green infrastructures are seen among the most widely applicable, economically viable and effective tools to combat the impacts of climate change and help people adapt to or mitigate adverse effects of this change.LIFE URBANGREEN is a European Funded project dealing with climate adaptation through the maximisation of ecosystem services provided by urban green areas maintained in an innovative way. The main expected result is a smart, integrated, geospatial management system, to monitor and govern all activities related to urban green areas, maximizing ecological benefits.Five innovative modules are being developed within the project, aimed at:<ul><li>providing irrigation to trees only when and where actually needed</li> <li>reducing the carbon footprint of maintenance activities through a more efficient job planning</li> <li>quantifying ecosystem services provided by green areas</li> <li>monitoring health conditions of trees using remote sensing data</li> <li>increasing citizen participation in urban green management</li> </ul>The project involves 5 Italian and Polish partners:<ul><li>R3 GIS (GIS software company and project coordinator, Bolzano, Italy)</li> <li>University of Milano (scientific coordinator, Milano, Italy)</li> <li>ProGea 4D (remote sensing company, Krakow, Poland)</li> <li>ZZM (manager of urban green areas in Krakow, Poland)</li> <li>Anthea (manager of urban green areas in Rimini, Italy)</li> </ul>Also, the National Central University (NCU) in Taiwan, under the coordination of Prof Yuei-An Liou, supports the project and participates as external partner and will test some innovations of the LIFE URBANGREEN Project in Taiwan.During the EGU conference, results obtained during the first two years of the project will be presented. More information on the project is available at www.lifeurbangreen.eu

Download Full-text

The Influence of Gender Relations on Women’s Involvement and Experience in Climate Change Adaptation Programs in Bangladesh

SAGE Open ◽

10.1177/2158244018812620 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 8 (4) ◽

pp. 215824401881262 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Mumita Tanjeela ◽

Shannon Rutherford

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Adaptation ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Climate Adaptation ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Power Dynamics ◽

Rural And Urban Areas ◽

Rural And Urban ◽

History Of ◽

Adaptation Practices

The nexus between poverty and climate change is a major concern, especially in a country like Bangladesh where lack of resources is a significant problem in both rural and urban areas. Climate change affects a wide demographic of the population in Bangladesh, and among those affected, women are more vulnerable to climate change impacts, as is evident from the history of climate-induced disasters in the country. Climate change increases women’s socio-economic vulnerabilities by directly impacting their family’s food security, water consumption, and livelihood. Hence, their roles and contributions are critical in responding through adaptation. Nonetheless, in Bangladesh, challenges remain to incorporate women as distinct actors and active agents in climate adaptation programs considering the gender power dynamics that exist. In this context, this study focuses on women’s contributions as individuals or as a group and reveals their significant influence in climate change adaptation practices.

Download Full-text

Nature-based approaches to managing climate change impacts in cities

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2019.0124 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 375 (1794) ◽

pp. 20190124 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Sarah E. Hobbie ◽

Nancy B. Grimm

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Cost Benefit ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Future Research ◽

Coastal Zones ◽

Impervious Cover ◽

Cultural Ecological ◽

Living Organisms ◽

Traditional Approaches

Managing and adapting to climate change in urban areas will become increasingly important as urban populations grow, especially because unique features of cities amplify climate change impacts. High impervious cover exacerbates impacts of climate warming through urban heat island effects and of heavy rainfall by magnifying runoff and flooding. Concentration of human settlements along rivers and coastal zones increases exposure of people and infrastructure to climate change hazards, often disproportionately affecting those who are least prepared. Nature-based strategies (NBS), which use living organisms, soils and sediments, and/or landscape features to reduce climate change hazards, hold promise as being more flexible, multi-functional and adaptable to an uncertain and non-stationary climate future than traditional approaches. Nevertheless, future research should address the effectiveness of NBS for reducing climate change impacts and whether they can be implemented at scales appropriate to climate change hazards and impacts. Further, there is a need for accurate and comprehensive cost–benefit analyses that consider disservices and co-benefits, relative to grey alternatives, and how costs and benefits are distributed across different communities. NBS are most likely to be effective and fair when they match the scale of the challenge, are implemented with input from diverse voices and are appropriate to specific social, cultural, ecological and technological contexts. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Climate change and ecosystems: threats, opportunities and solutions’.

Download Full-text

Monitoring of Urban Sprawl and Densification Processes in Western Germany in the Light of SDG Indicator 11.3.1 Based on an Automated Retrospective Classification Approach

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs13091694 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (9) ◽

pp. 1694

Author(s):

Gohar Ghazaryan ◽

Andreas Rienow ◽

Carsten Oldenburg ◽

Frank Thonfeld ◽

Birte Trampnau ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Population Growth ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Urban Expansion ◽

Population Data ◽

Observation Data ◽

Time Step ◽

Urban Dynamics ◽

Random Forest Classification ◽

Population Growth Rates ◽

High Level

By 2050, two-third of the world’s population will live in cities. In this study, we develop a framework for analyzing urban growth-related imperviousness in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) from the 1980s to date using Landsat data. For the baseline 2017-time step, official geodata was extracted to generate labelled data for ten classes, including three classes representing low, middle, and high level of imperviousness. We used the output of the 2017 classification and information based on radiometric bi-temporal change detection for retrospective classification. Besides spectral bands, we calculated several indices and various temporal composites, which were used as an input for Random Forest classification. The results provide information on three imperviousness classes with accuracies exceeding 75%. According to our results, the imperviousness areas grew continuously from 1985 to 2017, with a high imperviousness area growth of more than 167,000 ha, comprising around 30% increase. The information on the expansion of urban areas was integrated with population dynamics data to estimate the progress towards SDG 11. With the intensity analysis and the integration of population data, the spatial heterogeneity of urban expansion and population growth was analysed, showing that the urban expansion rates considerably excelled population growth rates in some regions in NRW. The study highlights the applicability of earth observation data for accurately quantifying spatio-temporal urban dynamics for sustainable urbanization and targeted planning.

Download Full-text

Assessing the Quality of Knowledge for Adaptation–Experiences From Co-designing Climate Services in Sweden

Frontiers in Climate ◽

10.3389/fclim.2021.636069 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 3 ◽

Author(s):

Karin André ◽

Linn Järnberg ◽

Åsa Gerger Swartling ◽

Peter Berg ◽

David Segersson ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Decision Making ◽

Design Process ◽

Research Collaboration ◽

Climate Adaptation ◽

Adaptation Planning ◽

Full Potential ◽

Adaptation To Climate Change ◽

Climate Services

Adaptation to climate change is becoming more urgent, but the wealth of knowledge that informs adaptation planning and decision-making is not used to its full potential. Top-down approaches to knowledge production are identified as one important reason for the gap between science and practice and are criticized for not meeting the needs of intended users. In response to this challenge, there is a growing interest in the creation of user-oriented and actionable climate services to support adaptation. At the same time, recent research suggests that greater efforts are needed to evaluate the effectiveness of knowledge co-production processes and the best criteria by which to gauge the quality of knowledge outcomes, while also considering different stakeholder perspectives. This paper explores these issues through a critical assessment of the quality of knowledge for adaptation generated from a climate services co-design process in two case studies in Sweden. The study draws on experiences from a 5-year research collaboration in which natural and social science researchers, together with local stakeholders, co-designed climate services to support climate adaptation planning and decision-making. The well-established knowledge quality criteria of credibility, legitimacy, saliency, usability, and usefulness remain relevant, but are not sufficient to capture factors relating to whether and how the knowledge actually is applied by climate change adaptation planners and decision-makers. We observe that case-specific circumstances beyond the scope of the co-design process, including the decision-making context as well as non-tangible outcomes, also play crucial roles that should be accounted for in the knowledge assessment processes.

Download Full-text

A Multi-Risk Methodology for the Assessment of Climate Change Impacts in Coastal Zones

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12093697 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (9) ◽

pp. 3697 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Valentina Gallina ◽

Silvia Torresan ◽

Alex Zabeo ◽

Andrea Critto ◽

Thomas Glade ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Coastal Erosion ◽

Coastal Zone Management ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Coastal Zones ◽

Influence Matrix ◽

Shoreline Evolution ◽

The North ◽

Zone Management

Climate change threatens coastal areas, posing significant risks to natural and human systems, including coastal erosion and inundation. This paper presents a multi-risk approach integrating multiple climate-related hazards and exposure and vulnerability factors across different spatial units and temporal scales. The multi-hazard assessment employs an influence matrix to analyze the relationships among hazards (sea-level rise, coastal erosion, and storm surge) and their disjoint probability. The multi-vulnerability considers the susceptibility of the exposed receptors (wetlands, beaches, and urban areas) to different hazards based on multiple indicators (dunes, shoreline evolution, and urbanization rate). The methodology was applied in the North Adriatic coast, producing a ranking of multi-hazard risks by means of GIS maps and statistics. The results highlight that the higher multi-hazard score (meaning presence of all investigated hazards) is near the coastline while multi-vulnerability is relatively high in the whole case study, especially for beaches, wetlands, protected areas, and river mouths. The overall multi-risk score presents a trend similar to multi-hazard and shows that beaches is the receptor most affected by multiple risks (60% of surface in the higher multi-risk classes). Risk statistics were developed for coastal municipalities and local stakeholders to support the setting of adaptation priorities and coastal zone management plans.

Download Full-text

From Urban Air Quality Forecasting and Information Systems to Integrated Urban Hydrometeorology, Climate and Environment Systems and Services for Smart Cities

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-8837 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Alexander Baklanov ◽

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Air Pollution ◽

Air Quality ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Urban Air Pollution ◽

Urban Air Quality ◽

Urban Air ◽

Climate Services ◽

Urban Weather ◽

Air Quality Forecasting

This presentation is analysing a modern evolution in research and development from specific urban air quality systems to multi-hazard and integrated urban weather, environment and climate systems and services and provides an overview of joint results of large EU FP FUMAPEX, MEGAPOLI, EuMetChem and MarcoPolo projects and international WMO GURME and IUS teams.&#160;Urban air pollution is still one of the key environmental issues for many cities around the world. A number of recent and previous international studies have been initiated to explore these issues. In particular relevant experience from several European projects will be demonstrated. MEGAPOLI studies aimed to assess the impacts of megacities and large air-pollution hotspots on local, regional and global air quality; to quantify feedback mechanisms linking megacity air quality, local and regional climates, and global climate change; and to develop improved tools for predicting air pollution levels in megacities (doi:10.5194/asr-4-115-2010). FUMAPEX developed for the first time an integrated system encompassing emissions, urban meteorology and population exposure for urban air pollution episode forecasting, the assessment of urban air quality and health effects, and for emergency preparedness issues for urban areas (UAQIFS: Urban Air Quality Forecasting and Information System; doi.org/10.5194/acp-6-2005-2006; doi.org/10.5194/acp-7-855-2007).While important advances have been made, new interdisciplinary research studies are needed to increase our understanding of the interactions between emissions, air quality, and regional and global climates. Studies need to address both basic and applied research and bridge the spatial and temporal scales connecting local emissions, air quality and weather with climate and global atmospheric chemistry. WMO has established the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) Urban Research Meteorology and Environment (GURME) project which provides an important research contribution to the integrated urban services.Most of the disasters affecting urban areas are of a hydro-meteorological nature and these have increased due to climate change. Cities are also responsible not only for air pollution emissions, but also for generating up to 70% of GHG emissions that drive large scale climate change. Thus, there is a strong feedback between contributions of cities to environmental health, climate change and the impacts of climate change on cities and these phases of the problem should not be considered separately. There is a critical need to consider the problem in a complex manner with interactions of climate change and disaster risk reduction for urban areas (doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2015.11.059, doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2017.05.004).WMO is promoting safe, healthy and resilient cities through the development of Integrated Urban Weather, Environment and Climate Services (IUS). The aim is to build urban services that meet the special needs of cities through a combination of dense observation networks, high-resolution forecasts, multi-hazard early warning systems, disaster management plans and climate services. This approach gives cities the tools they need to reduce emissions, build thriving and resilient communities and implement the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The Guidance on IUS, developed by a WMO inter-programme working group, documents and shares the good practices that will allow countries and cities to improve the resilience of urban areas to a great variety of natural and other hazards (https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=9903).

Download Full-text