Search

Information is offered about topics to be featured in the next issues of the periodical including climate change, urbanization, and food security.

This paper explores the extent to which participatory budgeting (PB) contributes to climate change adaptation and mitigation, based on an analysis of initiatives from 15 cities and regions in the global South and North. PB contributions are far from marginal, with significant investments decided by local people. The paper highlights some of the numerous innovations introduced to integrate PB into climate adaptation and mitigation efforts. Through a scrutiny of 4,400 PB projects, the research identified six categories of climate-related projects encompassing hardware as well as software approaches, such as awareness-raising activities, community-based early warning projects and research. The paper advocates for solidarity PBs for climate justice, and raises awareness of the huge (and as yet largely untapped) potential for this to help address the dramatic impacts that climate change has on millions of people's lives. It also points to questions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including urban poverty and inequality, detailed account of how finance is managed in the Asian Coalition for Community Action (ACCA) programme, and climate change.

In this paper, we present a narrative review of primary research on the health impacts of extreme weather events in urban informal settlements published between 1990 and June 2021. We include 54 studies and examine the health impacts of extreme weather events and how these were determined. We find that these events impact health directly by causing mortality, injury and disease and through indirect pathways by impacting livelihoods, access to healthcare, coping strategies and adaptive capacity. Drawing on the social determinants of health framework to frame our analysis, we find that health impacts are determined by multiple intersecting factors, relating to individual circumstances, material conditions, health status, and political and socio-economic context. Consequently, vulnerability varies between and within informal settlements. Overall, we show that responding to and minimising these health impacts requires an intersectional approach to understand and address these contextual root causes of vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent transformative resilience research calls for urban climate interventions that better meet the needs of low-income and other marginalized groups. Such initiatives, it is suggested, must move beyond technocratic and superficial solutions to address the systems and structures that create climate vulnerability. While these are important theoretical developments, there is still much to be learned about how to support transformative resilience on the ground. This paper situates transformative resilience theory in practice with lessons from a five-year research partnership in Southeast Asian cities. We argue that for resilience research to advance rights and justice, knowledge production and mobilization efforts must be conceptualized as active parts of the transformation process. Bringing together conceptual and methodological insights from resilience, political ecology and governance learning research, we offer three pathways for transformative resilience and present examples of how they can be operationalized in Southeast Asia and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resilience is receiving substantial traction as a concept to inform climate change and development policies and programmes. At the same time, a number of critiques have emerged that question its use as a framing concept for tackling urban climate change. This paper reflects on climate resilience and its critiques through an examination of the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) initiative in two cities in India. We illustrate aspects of the resilience critique and, using evidence of transformational aspects of the initiative, we argue that resilience thinking must be coupled with the concept of transformation in order to bring issues of people, politics and power to the fore. In the process, the conceptual strength of resilience can be combined with a more radical agenda that engages with underlying political structures and trade-offs that determine risk and vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The author discusses the challenges being faced by city and municipal governments, residents, and companies concerning the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) climate assessment. He notes that the assessment requires governments to add climate change adaptation and contributions to mitigation to their policies, plans, regulatory frameworks and budgets. He claims that lack of resources, funding, knowledge and capacity to address disaster risk and poverty should be addressed.

The relationship between “coping” and “resilience” increasingly features in academic, policy and practical discussions on adaptation to climate change in urban areas. This paper examines this relationship in the context of households in “extreme poverty” in the city of Khulna, Bangladesh. It draws on a quantitative data set based on 550 household interviews in low-income and informal settlements that identified the extent of the underlying drivers of vulnerability in this setting, including very low income, inadequate shelter, poor nutritional status and limited physical assets. A series of focus groups were used to explore the ways in which physical hazards have interacted with this underlying vulnerability, as a means to understand the potential impacts of climate change on this particular group of urban residents. These outcomes include frequent water-logging, the destruction of houses and disruption to the provision of basic services. The main focus of the paper is on describing the practices of low-income urban residents in responding to climate-related shocks and stresses, placing these in a particular political context, and drawing lessons for urban policies in Bangladesh and elsewhere. A wide range of specific adaptation-related activities can be identified, which can be grouped into three main categories – individual, communal and institutional. The paper examines the extent to which institutional actions are merely “coping” – or whether they create the conditions in which individuals and households can strengthen their own long-term resilience. Similarly, it examines the extent to which individual and communal responses are merely “coping” – or whether they have the potential to generate broader political change that strengthens the position of marginalized groups in the city. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editors discuss direct and indirect impacts of climate change and the adaptation of cities towards such changes.

Rapid urbanization and climate change together increase the vulnerability of poor urban communities to natural hazards, undermining urban resilience. It is therefore critical to identify and deepen our understanding of the main variables, and the complex interactions between them, producing and shaping the vulnerability of poor urban communities to natural hazards. Identifying factors that challenge or support the efforts of these communities in responding to hazards is also helpful in policymaking for urban resilience. To develop this understanding, it is necessary to conduct detailed research at the local scale. This paper aims to contribute to this knowledge by applying participatory modelling techniques to a particular case study of an informal settlement in Durban, South Africa. The aim is to elucidate how this detailed empirical research can contribute to broader theoretical knowledge on urban vulnerability and resilience in the face of climate change and rapid urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population pressure, urbanization and industrial developments, among other factors, have resulted in severe degradation of environmental resources such as wetlands. In the face of increased climate variability, several hazards continue to emerge, affecting the vulnerable sectors of society, especially the poor. Risks due to hazards and vulnerabilities are context specific; they are shaped by causal mechanisms and local conditions, which need to be understood if risks are to be reduced. In this paper, a range of hazards, perceived vulnerabilities and associated factors among wetland communities in Kampala have been analysed. The analysis is based on a survey of 551 households using semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and key informant interviews. The study focused on communities living in four wetlands that drain the city's wastewater into Murchison Bay in Lake Victoria. Results show floods and waterlogging as the principal hazards; however, secondary effects of floods and waterlogging such as disease vectors and diseases affect more people than the floods. Tenants were more likely than landlords/homeowners to be exposed to floods, and households that spend more than US$ 80 per month were less likely than households that spend less to be exposed to floods. Households that had been exposed to floods before were more likely to perceive themselves as vulnerable. Variations in exposure to hazards and perceived vulnerabilities could be due to differences in the capacity to resist, cope with, or adapt to minimize vulnerability. An investigation of adaptation mechanisms responding to the various hazards identified in this paper would enrich understanding of the elements that shape risk in this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes how the University of Ibadan has sought to build greater resilience to flooding, through its response to the devastating flood in 2011. This included both structural and non-structural components, as well as measures to address the increased risk levels that climate change is bringing or may bring in the future. The paper also draws out some lessons that have wide relevance for other universities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Extreme weather events disproportionately affect residents of low-income urban settlements in the global South. This paper explores the impacts of extreme heat and flooding on water and electricity services in Accra and Tamale, Ghana. Interviews with water/electricity providers and water quality analysis are combined with household interviews, focus group discussions and observations conducted in eight low-income urban settlements. The findings highlight the interconnected nature of service provision during extreme weather events, with challenges in one sector reinforcing problems in another, exacerbating difficulties with access. Although households can utilize rainwater during flooding, it is highly susceptible to faecal contamination, and electricity supplies are often disconnected. During extreme heat, demand for water and electricity outstrips supply, leading to severe shortages, especially in Tamale. Water and electricity service providers should consider their interconnected nature and adopt a joined-up approach to cope with extreme weather events, which are predicted to increase with climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on themes of the issues to be published by the periodical which includes climate change, urbanization, and use of local finance for local development.

In studies of climate change vulnerability, an important constraint relates to the uncertainty of the climate projections that local governments need to estimate precisely the risks and impacts climate events have on different parts of a city. In addition, the lack of “downscaled”, or local, climate information makes it very difficult to compare how individual communities and households adapt to severe and extreme weather events and, more importantly, what actions local governments can carry out to increase resilience in poor urban areas. Based on a conceptual and operational framework developed in recent years by the authors in collaboration with partners in the global South, this paper illustrates how “bottom-up” community asset planning for climate change adaptation can help to address this gap and be mainstreamed into “top-down” citywide strategic and operational planning. The paper describes the process by which community members and representatives of local government, the private sector and NGOs working in the city of Cartagena, Colombia, set up a dialogue space that enables them to identify, negotiate and agree climate change adaptation solutions that are legally, financially, socially and technically feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the legal, political, technical, economic and financial implications of fitting commitments by cities into the post-2012 climate change agreement. It notes the widespread recognition of the importance of cities and local governments to this agreement and describes the many challenges to including these governments within it – technical, political and economic. There are also the difficulties in reaching agreement on how targets can take into account differences in capacity to act and differences in the sectors where city governments have jurisdiction. As the post-2012 climate change negotiations are already a highly complicated process, the inclusion of sub-national governments into the agreement needs to constitute a “solution” rather than a “new problem”. The objective of this paper is to offer a framework and to identify key elements that need to be taken into account when developing a roadmap that seeks empowerment of local governments in the UN post-2012 framework on climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In Bangladesh, urban poverty is neglected in research, policy and action on poverty reduction. This paper explores the underlying reasons for this relative neglect, which include national identity and image, the political economy of urban poverty and the structuring of knowledge creation. It argues for more comprehensive policy and programmes for the urban poor given Bangladesh’s increasingly urban future and the growing magnitude of urban poverty. The impact of climate change will accelerate Bangladesh’s ongoing urbanization as well as deepen the scale and severity of urban poverty. The fact that reducing urban poverty will be increasingly important in meeting national goals for poverty reduction means that policy and action must pay more attention to the urban poor. This is contingent upon two factors: first, a better understanding of the scale and nature of urban poverty and vulnerability; and second, the confrontation of powerful interests necessary to secure a national commitment to urban poverty reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers how to make pro-poor climate change adaptation more effective in the city of Chittagong. Drawing on discussions with residents in informal settlements and interviews with staff from government agencies, NGOs and donors, it shows the lack of connection between the formal institutional structure for disaster preparedness and the groups most at risk from extreme weather disasters and their community level actions. There is no clear definition of roles among local government agencies with regard to climate change adaptation. Although there is a donor-funded programme to reduce poverty and disaster risks, this is not being implemented in the settlements most at risk from landslides. Neither are there any measures underway to address the needs of the residents in these high risk settlements, in part because of the financial weakness of local government. Nor is there much support for this from national government – since national climate change adaptation policy does not consider urban adaptation and strengthening urban government capacity to reduce the vulnerability of the extreme poor as a priority. NGOs undertake programmes for community-based disaster risk reduction but their scale and scope are limited by not being integrated into local government. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cities are blamed for the majority of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. So too are more affluent, highly urbanized countries. If all production-and consumption-based emissions that result from lifestyle and purchasing habits are included, urban residents and their associated affluence likely account for more than 80 per cent of the world’s GHG emissions. Attribution of GHG emissions should be refined. Apportioning responsibility can be misguided, as recent literature demonstrates that residents of denser city centres can emit half the GHG emissions of their suburban neighbours. It also fails to capture the enormous disparities within and across cities as emissions are lowest for poor cities and particularly low for the urban poor.This paper presents a detailed analysis of per capita GHG emissions for several large cities and a review of per capita emissions for 100 cities for which peer-reviewed studies are available. This highlights how average per capita GHG emissions for cities vary from more than 15 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) (Sydney, Calgary, Stuttgart and several major US cities) to less than half a tonne (various cities in Nepal, India and Bangladesh). The paper discusses where GHG emissions arise and where mitigation efforts may be most effective. It illustrates the need to obtain comparable estimates at city level and the importance of defining the scope of the analysis. Emissions for Toronto are presented at a neighbourhood level, city core level and metropolitan area level, and these are compared with provincial and national per capita totals. This shows that GHG emissions can vary noticeably for the same resident of a city or country depending on whether these are production- or consumption-based values. The methodologies and results presented form important inputs for policy development across urban sectors. The paper highlights the benefits and drawbacks of apportioning GHG emissions (and solid waste generation) per person. A strong correlation between high rates of GHG emissions and solid waste generation is presented. Policies that address both in concert may be more effective as they are both largely by-products of lifestyles. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers the risks from and vulnerabilities to flooding in four urban poor communities close to the coast in Lagos, Nigeria. Drawing on interviews with inhabitants and key informants and also on group discussions, it documents the scale and frequency of flooding in these settlements and the impacts, as well as the individual, household and community responses. It also considers the factors that have contributed to increasing flood risks in Lagos, including the uncontrolled expansion of the built-up area, the lack of infrastructure and the failure not only to expand stormwater drainage but also to maintain existing drainage systems. The paper also considers changes in the frequency and intensity of rainstorms on Lagos Island between 1971 and 2005, which suggest that on average these have become less frequent but more intense. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Environment & Urbanization is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The author discusses the evolution of the role of mayors in city government and civic planning. Mayoral relations with urban poor groups is surveyed. The author questions whether larger political and institutional structures support effective mayors. The critical role mayors will play regarding urban development to address problems related to climate change is discussed.

The article presents a bulletin board providing information on themes for future issues of the journal, information concerning "Tiempo," a newsletter on global warming and climate change, and information on discounted prices of the journal for non-profit and charity organizations.

Urban populations living in informal settlements are inherently vulnerable to climate change, as informal settlements are characterized by overcrowding, poor-quality housing, lack of basic infrastructure, and poverty. Nevertheless, evidence of the associations among weather or climate and health in these populations is lacking, which severely constrains the design of climate change and disaster risk reduction adaptation strategies. To help fill this gap, this paper is a guide for researchers working on climate and health in informal settlements that summarizes key epidemiological methods and study designs commonly used in environmental health research. We focus on designs that have modest data requirements and that have been used successfully in resource-poor settings. The final section of the paper gives an overview of the current state of evidence about climate change and weather hazards in urban areas, as this is one of the main concerns for policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many of the people who are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change live in low-income and informal settlements in and around urban centres in Africa, Asia and Latin America. While there is a growing recognition of the importance of urban resilience, there is little documented evidence of how collective actions undertaken by residents of these communities can contribute to this. This paper describes the processes adopted by the National Slum Dwellers Federation of Uganda for responding to a variety of challenges – and explains how these not only address the immediate needs of these communities but also contribute to building resilience at the scale of the individual, household, community and city. It links the experiences of manufacturing matoke briquettes, developing new construction materials for low-income housing, and improving drainage and freshwater supplies to some of the key features of an urban resilience agenda, and makes the case for broader international support and funding to these local responses to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate resilience varies significantly based on gender and on location in different physical and social spaces. A qualitative study exploring conditions of the urban poor in Khulna, Bangladesh demonstrates how the appropriation of private, parochial and public spaces by residents of informal settlements influences their capacity to cope with climate risks. Because of the spatial implications of the predominant patriarchal system, women remain vulnerable in private spaces. The parochial spaces they use for productive work also leave them exposed and sensitive to climate hazards. On the other hand, men, who make greater use of public spaces, still have negligible capacity to take any anticipatory and reactive actions in response to risks there. This paper, which provides a comparison to earlier research in Dhaka, argues that gendered constraints in both inhabiting and shaping spaces is an underlying cause of differential climate resilience; alternatively, planning climate-resilient spaces can be seen as a fundamental change contributing to transformative adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the gendered dynamics of climate change adaptation in a rapidly urbanizing area of the global South. As climate change adaptation gains increasing prominence in global environmental policies and development strategies, there is a tendency to conceptualize adaptation as a technical process, disconnected from the everyday reality of how adaptation is practised by people facing negative climate change impacts. We present evidence from a small-scale case study of a flood-prone informal settlement in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania to provide a contextually grounded contribution to a growing body of literature on gender, climate change and cities. We argue that the way climate change impacts are perceived, experienced and adapted to on an everyday level is characterized by gendered differences (among others). We demonstrate that a greater understanding of these gendered nuances highlights the disconnect between everyday gendered realities and a high-level technical notion of adaptation deployed at strategic and policy levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented on impact of climate change on urban poverty topics including requirement of low greenhouse gas emissions; require changes in urban governance; and consequences of sea-level rise and coastal flooding.

This paper explores the recognitional dimensions of urban climate change justice in a development context. Through the lens of migrants in the Indian cities of Bengaluru and Surat, we highlight how experiences of environmental marginality can be attributed to a lack of recognition of citizenship rights and informal livelihood strategies. Specifically, the drivers of non-recognition in this situation relate to broken social networks and a lack of political voice, as well as heightened exposure to emerging climate risks and economic precariousness. We find that migrants experience extreme forms of climate injustice as they are often invisible to the official state apparatus, or worse, are actively erased from cities through force or discriminatory development policies. Current theories must therefore engage more seriously with issues of recognition to enable more radical climate justice in cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pacific Small Island Developing States are often referred to as the "frontline" of climate change, facing an array of worsening climate-related shocks and stressors. However, despite their underlying exposure to climate change impacts, the role of Pacific Island cities as both an avenue for adaptation and sites of climate vulnerability is often overlooked. This paper reflects on two ongoing participatory action research projects conducted by UN-Habitat and research partners from Australian universities in Honiara, Solomon Islands, and Port Vila, Vanuatu. Findings from community consultations across 16 communities in these settings demonstrate the critical role of endogenous modes of resilience, as well as the strong correlation between these spaces and sub-city climate vulnerability. Cross-scale integration with climate resilience planning processes is then used to examine points of conflict between stakeholder interpretations of core functions within socioecological systems, demonstrating the importance of considering values and conflict within urban climate adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban governments need to take actions to reduce disaster risks and incorporate climate resilience into their development strategies and plans. But most local governments, particularly small- and medium-sized cities in the global South, lack the knowledge and capacity to do so. This paper presents the findings from a project that engaged local governments and other key stakeholders to develop a participatory planning process for climate resilient and inclusive urban development. The project took place in three small- to medium-sized Latin American cities: Dosquebradas, Colombia; Santa Ana, El Salvador; and Santo Tomé, Argentina. By engaging government officials and politicians, academics, technical specialists, and representatives of civil society organizations in interviews, workshops and focus group discussions, this project sought to identify a range of feasible options for climate resilient and inclusive urban development. In each city, this process provided rich, context-specific details to identify strategies and plan projects with the buy-in of city government and other key actors. The overall goal was to bring in a resilience lens to assess current and planned urban development projects in each city and reach a consensus on feasible and inclusive resilience options for development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the very large differences in adaptive capacity among the world’s urban centres. It then discusses how risk levels may change for a range of climatic drivers of impacts in the near term (2030–2040) and the long term (2080–2100) with a 2°C and a 4°C warming for Dar es Salaam, Durban, London and New York City. The paper is drawn directly from Chapter 8 of Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, the IPCC Working Group II contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report. It includes the complete text of this chapter’s Executive Summary. The paper highlights the limits to what adaptation can do to protect urban areas and their economies and populations without the needed global agreement and action on mitigation; this is the case even for cities with high adaptive capacities. It ends with a discussion of transformative adaptation and where learning on how to achieve this needs to come from. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reflects on how the city of Manizales, Colombia, is incorporating climate change adaptation into its plans, and how this can build on the foundations of the city’s long-established urban environmental policy (Biomanizales) and local environmental action plan (Bioplan) that have guided urban development and have developed incorporating disaster risk reduction into local development policies and local land use plans. The success is rooted in coherent, multi-level governance, including capacity to integrate disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation, land use and territorial planning within a holistic view of development that includes the views and capacities of multiple stakeholders. As the process matures, an acknowledgment of weaknesses leads to improved ways of addressing climate-related risks and adaptation challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper describes the flood risks faced by Surat, one of India’s most successful and also most flood-prone cities. The city is located on the Tapi River and faces flood risks not only from heavy precipitation in and around the city but also from heavy precipitation upstream and from high tides downstream. Reducing the risks from upstream depends on better water management in a water catchment area and dam reservoir located far outside the city authority’s jurisdiction and in another state. The paper also reviews measures being taken to reduce flood risks – and how climate change is likely to affect such risks. It suggests that part of the city’s response needs to be a greater ability to live with floods, while minimizing the costs these usually bring in terms of loss of life, damage to homes and disruption to businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reflects on the progress made in climate change adaptation in the city of Durban since the launch of the Municipal Climate Protection Programme in 2004. This includes the initial difficulties in getting the attention of key sectors within municipal government, and how this was addressed and also served by the more detailed understanding of the range of adaptation options and their cost-benefits. There is also a better understanding of the potentials and constraints on community-based adaptation and the opposition from some landowners to measures to protect and enhance ecosystem services. The paper ends with lessons learnt that contradict some common assumptions – for instance, what approaches best build support for climate change adaptation within local governments, what measures work and from where lessons can be drawn. It also describes the perhaps unexpected linkages between local action and international influence and highlights the need for international climate change negotiations to recognize the key roles of urban governments in developing locally rooted adaptation and resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The city of Dar es Salaam, with a population of more than four million, has no climate change adaptation plan. It also has a very large development deficit and lacks adequate provision for infrastructure and services such as piped water, sewers, drains and solid waste collection. Addressing this deficit (and building the institutional and financial capacity to do so) is also important for building resilience to climate change impacts. Eighty per cent of the city’s population lives in informal settlements, but there is little effective land use management and a number of these settlements are on sites that flood regularly. Climate change impacts include sea level rise, rising temperatures and increased occurrence of extreme weather, including rainstorms and droughts, all of which present challenges to city and municipal governments that are struggling to reduce the development deficit. This paper discusses the measures being taken to address this deficit and where and how these measures can be accompanied by improved disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As climate change impacts are felt within growing numbers of cities in low- and middle-income countries, there is growing interest in the adaptation plans and programmes put forward by city authorities. Yet cities face considerable constraints on this front. This paper aims to provide a better understanding of these constraints by analyzing the case of Rosario, in Argentina. The city has a strong coherent governance system, with a commitment to decentralization, transparency, accountability and participation. Its long tradition of urban planning has evolved to include a broad vision of urban challenges and responses, a commitment to environmental sustainability and a strategic plan that has involved multiple stakeholders. This paper describes the many measures implemented in Rosario over the last 18 years, which provide a solid foundation for more systematically addressing adaptation. It also describes the significant challenges faced by the city’s administration, especially around funding, data and the challenge of responding to pressing and competing interests. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines patterns of adaptive behaviour in low-income settlements(1) in Khulna, Bangladesh’s third largest city. It contrasts the adaptive behaviours of “squatter” households who “own” their land with those of tenants who rent dwellings from private landlords, and finds significant differences between the adaptive behaviours of owners and renters. This is important, as most knowledge about low-income settlements in Bangladesh originates from “owned” settlements – often called “public settlements”, as the land is officially public land. But the future growth of low-income settlements in the country is likely to be increasingly on private land, with rented dwellings. Policy lessons generated from settlements with “squatters” may be inappropriate for the next generation of “slums” that will house millions of rural migrants and people displaced by climate change. The conclusions argue that agencies seeking to assist low-income households in Bangladesh will need to craft different strategies for settlements according to different types of land tenure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the design and application of a benefit-cost model to the city of Durban’s (South Africa) climate change adaptation options. The approach addresses the inability to compile an accurate damage-cost function for economic prioritizations at the local level. It proposes that uncertainty over climate impacts and the efficacy of adaptation responses, in conjunction with the lack of economic data, high levels of economic informality and inequality make it difficult to link adaptation efforts to positive GDP impact in Durban. Instead, the research based its calculations of “benefits” on the number of people impacted and the extent of the welfare benefits imparted by the respective adaptation efforts. It also took into account the uncertainty over future events, capacity constraints, priorities of decision makers and the risk of maladaptation. The results were reported as benefit-cost ratios for 16 clusters of interventions (many of which were primarily the responsibility of one municipal department or agency) in each of four future scenarios (defined by minor or major climate change and weak or strong socio-institutional capacity). The paper presents and discusses the benefit-cost ratios and total benefits for each of the intervention clusters in each of the future scenarios. It emphasizes how these are influenced by choices of time frames. It also highlights how the most efficient interventions across all futures and time frames tend to be socio-institutional – for instance the creation of a cross-sectoral disaster management forum, sea level rise preparedness and early warning system, and creating climate change adaptation capacity within the water services unit. Ecosystem-based adaptation measures had moderate benefit-cost ratios, probably because in Durban the land that needs to be purchased for this is relatively expensive. Infrastructure-based clusters generally had the lowest benefit-cost ratios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is expected to affect the poor in low- and middle-income countries most, particularly in the next few decades, through increased flooding and droughts. A very large number of these poor live in informal urban settlements, where they rely on water kiosks and pit latrines and where there is usually inadequate provision for drainage. Despite an abundance of publications on climate change, there is little advice that is specific to those providing water and sanitation services to the urban poor in these countries. This paper presents a Rapid Climate Adaptation Assessment (RCAA) for water and sanitation providers that generates recommendations on climate proofing for local service providers, utilities and local governments. Overall, the RCAA converts regional climate predictions into recommendations for local adaptations. The methodology was developed through fieldwork with communities in Lusaka (Zambia), Naivasha (Kenya) and Antananarivo (Madagascar). The paper describes the methodology, summarizes the results of its application (and the implications for adaptation) and discusses its wider application and limitations. In most cases, the proposed adaptations are not new actions, and could be described as “good water management”. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper provides conceptual and methodological guidelines for researchers seeking to undertake an urban participatory climate change adaptation appraisal (PCCAA), illustrated with examples from appraisals in Mombasa (Kenya) and Estelí (Nicaragua). It highlights the importance of hearing local people’s voices regarding incrementally worsening and often unrecorded severe weather. The conceptual framework distinguishes between the analysis of asset vulnerability and the identification of asset-based operational strategies, and sets out a number of methodological principles and practices for undertaking a PCCAA. This PCCAA addressed five main themes: community characteristics; severe weather; vulnerability to severe weather; asset adaptation; and institutions supporting local adaptation. For each of these, it identified potential tools for eliciting information, illustrated by examples from Mombasa and Estelí. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reviews the literature on health in the informal settlements (and “slums”) that now house a substantial proportion of the urban population in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Although this highlights some important gaps in research, available studies do suggest that urban health inequalities usually begin at birth, are reproduced over a lifetime (often reinforced by undernutrition), and may be recreated through vulnerabilities to climate change and a “double burden” of communicable and non-communicable diseases. The review begins with a discussion of papers with a life-course perspective on health, poverty and housing, before considering recent literature on chronic poverty and ill-health over time. It then discusses the literature on the cost, quality and access to care among low-income groups, and the under-recognized threat of unintentional injuries. This includes recent literature that discusses where low-income residents may suffer an “urban penalty” rather than benefiting from urban bias — although there are also studies that show the effectiveness of accessible, pro-poor health care. The concluding section examines emerging risks such as non-communicable diseases and those associated with climate change. It notes how more gender- and age-sensitive strategies can help address the large inequalities in health between those in informal settlements and other urban residents. With greater attention to the multi-faceted needs of low-income communities, governments can create interventions to ensure that urban centres fulfil their enormous potential for health. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How, and when, does it become possible to conceptualize a truly planetary crisis? The Cold War nuclear arms race installed one powerful concept of planetary crisis in American culture. The science enabling the US nuclear arsenal, however, also produced unintended byproducts: notably, a radical new investment in the earth sciences. Cold War nuclear science ultimately produced not only bombs, but also a new understanding of the earth as biosphere. Thus, the image of planetary crisis in the US was increasingly doubled during the Cold War - the immediacy of nuclear threat matched by concerns about rapid environmental change and the cumulative effects of industrial civilization on a fragile biosphere. This paper examines the evolution of (and competition between) two ideas of planetary crisis since 1945: nuclear war and climate change. In doing so, the paper offers an alternative history of the nuclear age and considers the US national security implications of a shift in the definition of planetary crisis from warring states to a warming biosphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Environment & Urbanization is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Environment & Urbanization is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Environment & Urbanization is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Environment & Urbanization is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Environment & Urbanization is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Environment & Urbanization is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper describes initiatives in two Indonesian cities to reduce flood risks for those living in informal riverbank settlements. In Solo, the mayor encouraged dialogue with riverbank households, which evolved into government grants available to households prepared to relocate so that they could choose and purchase land sites in safer locations and build their homes. The government provided services and, where needed, official identity cards to those who moved. As a result of this process 993 households relocated – another 578 with legal tenure of their riverbank plots have not moved and are seeking higher compensation. In Surabaya, the mayor also encouraged dialogue with riverbank communities but no agreement was reached on tenure or alternative accommodation and compensation for those who were to move. Although neither initiative was a response to climate change, both highlight the importance of development solutions that increase resilience and that work with those most at risk from flooding and other risks that climate change is likely to create or exacerbate in Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]