Are cities prepared for climate change? An analysis of adaptation readiness in 104 German cities

AbstractCities can be severely affected by climate change. Hence, many of them have started to develop climate adaptation strategies or implement measures to help prepare for the challenges it will present. This study aims to provide an overview of climate adaptation in 104 German cities. While existing studies on adaptation tracking rely heavily on self-reported data or the mere existence of adaptation plans, we applied the broader concept of adaptation readiness, considering five factors and a total of twelve different indicators, when making our assessments. We clustered the cities depending on the contribution of these factors to the overall adaptation readiness index and grouped them according to their total score and cluster affiliations. This resulted in us identifying four groups of cities. First, a pioneering group comprises twelve (mainly big) cities with more than 500,000 inhabitants, which showed high scores for all five factors of adaptation readiness. Second, a set of 36 active cities, which follow different strategies on how to deal with climate adaptation. Third, a group of 28 cities showed considerably less activity toward climate adaptation, while a fourth set of 28 mostly small cities (with between 50,000 and 99,999 inhabitants) scored the lowest. We consider this final group to be pursuing a ‘wait-and-see’ approach. Since the city size correlates with the adaptation readiness index, we recommend policymakers introduce funding schemes that focus on supporting small cities, to help them prepare for the impact of a changing climate.

Integrative structural components of adaptation readiness of students with disabilities

The availability of higher education for people with disabilities (hereinafter referred to as “Disabled people”) cannot be considered without creating an inclusive educational environment and implementing measures for psychological and pedagogical support. Adequate, reasonable and effective accompanying work in this context provides for filling the gaps in research devoted to the study of adaptation readiness. With due account for these circumstances, the research purpose is to identify and describe the structural components of adaptation readiness of students with disabilities in the context of inclusive education. The used diagnostic battery (N=200): a diagnostic technique of Rogers-Diamond’s socio-psychological adaptation as adapted by A.K. Osnitsky; a multilevel personality questionnaire “Adaptability” (MLO – AM) (A.G. Maklakov, S.V. Chermyanin); methodology “Adaptation readiness of personality” by M.V. Grigorieva. Statistical procedures: Student’s t-test calculation, correlation by Pearson’s method; factor analysis (principal component factorization with Varimax rotation). The research results show that the adaptation capacity potential of students with conditionally normative development is statistically significantly higher than that of disabled students (t=22.1, p≤0.01). There was also a decrease in socio-psychological adaptation in the designated category of students on indicators “Adaptation” (t=8.79, p≤0.01); “Self-perception” (t = 8.48, p≤0.01); “Emotional comfort” (t = 6.73, p≤0.01). A two-factor structural model of adaptation readiness of students with disabilities, including psychological-psychophysiological and socio-psychological components, including content areas and structural elements, has been identified.

Autoregulation in Resistance Training: Addressing the Inconsistencies

Autoregulation is a process that is used to manipulate training based primarily on the measurement of an individual’s performance or their perceived capability to perform. Despite being established as a training framework since the 1940s, there has been limited systematic research investigating its broad utility. Instead, researchers have focused on disparate practices that can be considered specific examples of the broader autoregulation training framework. A primary limitation of previous research includes inconsistent use of key terminology (e.g., adaptation, readiness, fatigue, and response) and associated ambiguity of how to implement different autoregulation strategies. Crucially, this ambiguity in terminology and failure to provide a holistic overview of autoregulation limits the synthesis of existing research findings and their dissemination to practitioners working in both performance and health contexts. Therefore, the purpose of the current review was threefold: first, we provide a broad overview of various autoregulation strategies and their development in both research and practice whilst highlighting the inconsistencies in definitions and terminology that currently exist. Second, we present an overarching conceptual framework that can be used to generate operational definitions and contextualise autoregulation within broader training theory. Finally, we show how previous definitions of autoregulation fit within the proposed framework and provide specific examples of how common practices may be viewed, highlighting their individual subtleties.