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This book offers a thorough review of studies on climate change and urban adaptation strategies and plans. It takes the moves from the identification of three primary barriers to adaptation, including the uncertainty surrounding climate change and its evolution, the complexity of human systems, and the widespread perception that climate change impacts are improbable. From this analysis arises the idea of the need to adopt a new approach to the climate issue: the soft approach. This approach focuses on the intangible and organizational aspects of systems and is proposed as a valid alternative in contexts of high uncertainty. It complements the structural (hard) option in response to emerging risks. Furthermore, soft solutions have intrinsic characteristics of flexibility, reversibility, adaptability, scalability, and cost-effectiveness, making them often low-regret and co-benefit. Based on these principles, the book suggests that a climate-wise reorganization of urban services couldconstitute an effective soft strategy to help cities tackle the impacts of climate change and investigates the potential for Urban Facility Management services to evolve through their integration with climate information. The concept of urban Adaptation services, which integrate knowledge and practices of climate services into urban services management processes, is an innovative perspective which stems from a reading of reality through the lens of specific needs.

This book focuses on the urban wind environment of urban center district. Through urban spatial morphology and urban space units it provides in-depth evaluation and research on the correlation between urban spatial morphology indicator and urban wind environment. Based on urban spatial morphology indicators, such as building density, FAR, average building height and wind environment parameter, it conducts quantitative analysis and statistic evaluation to acquire the influence relationship between urban planning indicators and wind speed. In addition, based on the 13 typical urban morphology units it also analyses the different situation of wind environment. Finally it provides the optimized strategies on urban planning, architecture and landscape. It intertwines the quantitative research between wind environment and urban morphology through in-depth analysis and urban microclimate simulation. It makes a valuable contribution for the research on urban environment and urban morphology.

This book looks at the New Urban Agenda and prospects of its implementation. In 2016, the New Urban Agenda was endorsed by the General Assembly of the United Nations after having been adopted by the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) in Quito, Ecuador. Together with the Sustainable Development Goals, it provides a comprehensive and ambitious roadmap for global debate and action related to sustainable urbanisation during the coming decades. As mature economies and ageing societies, Japan and Germany can make considerable contributions to the implementation of the New Urban Agenda. Both countries share a number of similar challenges for environmentally sustainable and resilient urban development under conditions of social change. Furthermore, they have vast experience in actively promoting urban transformation towards a more sustainable urban future. At the same time the authors are making a contribution towards implementing the New Urban Agenda. Other countries may build up on the experience provided and the 20 examples described in this book. The work is based on a longstanding cooperation between the Graduate School of Environmental Studies of the Nagoya University (Japan), the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (Germany) and the Technische Universität Dresden (Germany).