Preparing cities for a changing climate
Cities face a major challenge: how to adapt to a changing climate, reduce harmful emissions and create a sustainable and just future for all? Deltares has published two new papers with insights for cities on how to make smart choices for a climate resilient future. We aim to provide practical tools to support decision makers.
Many cities are working on climate adaptation, mitigation and development, but often in separate plans. This can lead to missed opportunities for co-benefits, or even conflicting effects. Deltares aims to provide practical tools to support decision makers to develop more integrated plans.
Two new publications, one mission
The first publication, What is needed to make climate-resilient development pathways in cities feasible?, describes common barriers and enablers to aligning climate action and development plans in European cities and identifies three building blocks for a planning framework: understanding interactions between adaptation, mitigation, and development; incorporating time and uncertainty into planning; and providing specialized information and tools.Tailoring existing climate services, tools, and planning frameworks is a promising starting point.
The second publication introduces the CRDAPP framework, an extension of Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways (DAPP). This framework supports cities move from silos to integrated and flexible strategies that can be adjusted as conditions change. A illustrative case study in Cork City in Ireland shows how this approach can work in practice: creating shared visions of climate resilient futures, evaluating interactions between adaptation, mitigation and development actions, and identifying critical decision moments that create path dependencies over time.
International Attention
These insights were recently presented at the Adaptation Futures conference in New Zealand. “Cities are already doing a lot, but their adaptation, mitigation and development plans are often created in silos. Our goal is to help cities align these actions to achieve co-benefits and limit negative outcomes” says Sadie McEvoy, climate adaptation expert at Deltares".
At Deltares, we are busying exploring and developing ways to support more integrated and whole-of-society approaches to adaptation planning that ensure cities, deltas, coasts and river basins are resilient, sustainable and just for everyone - now and in the future.
