The Future Ground. Urban Planning Under Climate Uncertainty
Theoretical Contributions, Methodological Innovation, and Empirical Insights from Amsterdam and Mumbai
S. Krishnan (TU Delft - System Engineering)
M. Comes – Promotor (TU Delft - Transport and Logistics)
N.Y. Aydin – Copromotor (TU Delft - System Engineering)
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Abstract
The Future Ground: Urban Planning Under Climate Uncertainty
As the focal point of the climate crisis, urban regions face a critical mismatch between the century-long lifecycles of physical infrastructure and the short-term institutional planning timeframes that govern them. This research addresses the dual constraints of temporal myopia (short-sightedness) and sectoral fragmentation, addressing the lack of mechanisms to systematically embed climate uncertainty into spatial masterplans.
Positioned within the emerging paradigm of climate urbanism, this dissertation examines how urban planning can operationalize resilience thinking and apply design thinking to steer transformation under uncertainty. The research adopts a mixed-methods design grounded in Multi-Case Theory building (MCT), enabling a rigorous exchange between theory and practice. The approach is empirically refined through two contrasting global contexts: the Metropolitan Region of Amsterdam (MRA) and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR).
The research culminates in a new theories and conceptual framework that connects resilience and uncertainty approaches to physical planning interventions and an advanced understanding of the temporal dynamics of urban systems. Furthermore, it introduces a methodological innovation: a stepwise Design Thinking methodology for blending computational models and scenario narratives that embeds expert feedback into the modelling process to navigate and design for complex urban futures.