A Systematic Approach to Improve Reliability of Storm Surge Barrier Closures

Coastal defenses must be upgraded to combat increasing flood risk due to climate change and other factors. Storm surge barriers, large movable hydraulic structures that close temporarily during storm surges to prevent coastal floods, play a vital role in protecting estuaries. Due to the complexity of their risk analyses, important improvements...

Enabling Socio-Ecological Resilience in the Global South: Insights from Chennai, India

Addressing climate change adaptation in the cities of the Global South is crucial as they are the most at risk and, arguably, the least capable of coping with it due to their rapid expansion, informal development, and limited institutional capacity. This paper explores this challenge in the case of Chennai, India, a city which, in recent years,...

Boundary spanning and adaptive capacity in Pearl River Delta megacities

The cities of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) have been experiencing an unprecedented urban expansion for the past four decades, leading to emergence of one of the most populous and dynamic urban regions. However, these rapidly expanding cities located in a low-lying delta area also face increasing flood risk due to a combination of anthropogenic...

Fragile airports. Fragile cities. Fragile landscapes

Recent events provide ample proof of the fragility of cities, territories and airport nodes when they come face-to-face with extreme and unexpected events. The Coronavirus pandemic, for example, has caused a complete disruption in the air network. Climate change, recurrent floods, rising seas, desertification, land impoverishment and, more...

Meeting at the crossroads? Developing national strategies for disaster risk reduction and resilience: Relevance, scope for, and challenges to, integration

Increasing impacts from disasters and climate hazards have prompted international efforts to promote the development of national disaster risk reduction and resilience (DRRR) strategies intended to reduce mortality and other losses. The development of such strategies is the subject of target E of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk...

The impacts of climate change on cultural heritage in the Netherlands: A preliminary assessment of exposure

Cultural heritage provides a wide range of economic, socio-cultural and environmental benefits for current and future generations. Globally, scientific evidence shows that climate change is adversely affecting diverse tangible and intangible cultural heritage [1; 2]. Yet, in the Netherlands, there is a need for a greater understanding of the...

Adaptive asset management for flood protection: The FAIR framework in action

Uncertainties about climate change consequences, changing societal requirements and system complexity require flood protection asset managers to continuously evaluate their asset management policies and practice to manage risk and improve the resilience of their assets. However, there are many challenges in doing this, with asset operators...

Realising the potential of cultural heritage to achieve climate change actions in the Netherlands

Climate change impacts on diverse cultural heritage is gaining scholarly and policy attention, yet little research has been conducted on how can diverse cultural heritage inform decisionmakers and policymakers in achieving climate change actions (i.e., climate change adaptation and mitigation). For this study, we conducted semi-structured...

Adapting cultural heritage to climate change impacts in the Netherlands: barriers, interdependencies, and strategies for overcoming them

Climate change is currently impacting cultural heritage globally. Despite advances in the understanding of the relationship between climate change impacts and cultural heritage, there are significant barriers that hamper adaptation of cultural heritage to current and projected climate risks. This paper aims to advance the empirical understanding...

Institutional Change through Social Learning: Climate Change Policy Gaming in Kenya

Complex and uncertain societal problems cannot be addressed by technical solutions that rely solely on predictions. Institutions that entirely rely on predictions, repeat the same actions (routine), with little reflection on the impact of these technological solutions upon the socio-technical system. Though routine is beneficial for stability...

Knowledge co-production in climate adaptation planning of archaeological sites

Climate adaptation is a process for minimizing the risks of damage or loss to coastal archaeological sites. Yet, adaptation requires identifying and prioritizing among the diverse aspects of a site’s significance, as not all sites can be simultaneously adapted due to financial and human capital constraints. Developing a measurement framework...

Exploring urban flooding incidence through spatial information: A complementary view to support climate adaptation of lowland cities

Cities are vulnerable to local floods due to heavy rainfall. Urban flooding causes damage to buildings and contents, and also disturbs daily city activities as it entails drainage, transportation, and electricity interruptions. Urban flooding is expected to increase as climate change drives heavier rainfall events. Population and assets...

Boundary spanning for governance of climate change adaptation in cities: Insights from a Dutch urban region

Adapting to climate change in the urban setting requires cooperation across scales, levels of government, organisational boundaries and policy sectors. The study presented in the paper explores governance of urban adaptation policies through the conceptual lens of multi-level governance and boundary spanning. It focuses on the South Wing of the...

Coastal and riverine ecosystems as adaptive flood defenses under a changing climate

Adaptation planning for flood risk forms a significant part of global climate change response. Engineering responses to higher water levels can be prohibitively costly. Several recent studies emphasize the potential role of ecosystems in flood protection as adaptive risk reduction measures while also contributing to carbon fixation. Here, we...

Presenting a framework to analyze local climate policy and action in small and medium-sized cities

Academic attention to local climate policy usually focuses on large-sized cities. Given the climate challenges ahead this seems unjustified. Small and medium-sized cities (SMCs) deserve scholarly attention as well. The main question is: What factors influence climate change policy and local climate actions in SMCs? In this article we present...