Climate Resilience

Climate resilience, or the capacity of socio-ecological systems to adapt and upkeep their functions when facing physical-chemical stress, is a key feature of ecosystems and communities. As the risks and impacts of climate change become more intense and more visible, there is a need to foster a broader understanding of both the impacts of these disruptions to food, water, and energy supplies and to increase resilience at the national and local level. The Handbook of Climate Change Resilience comprises a diverse body of knowledge, united in the objective of building climate resilience in both the industralised and the developing world. This unique publication will assist scientists, decision-makers and community members to take action to make countries, regions and cities more resilient.

Supporters of environmental well-being and climate resilience are awakening and mobilizing – cities, states, business, academia, community-based organizations, and the military. They understand the imminent and long-term risks of climate deterioration and they are creating new structures beyond the top-down government policy efforts of the past. This highly practical book provides a clear insight into these collaborative solutions by real organizations in real time. It demonstrates how people from disparate fields and stakeholders cooperate to address climate issues at ground level and reveals how this can be undertaken effectively. Through case studies of key organizations such as the NYC Sustainability Office, Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice, IBM, and West Point Military Academy, readers will understand each party’s role in a cooperative enterprise and the means by which they support climate resiliency, their institutional goals, and their communities. Of particular value, the book illustrates the co-benefits of multi-party resilience planning: faster approval times; reduced litigation; ability to monetize benefits such as positive health outcomes; the economic benefits of cooperation (for example, capacity building through financing climate planning and resilience across public, private, and other sources of funding); and developing a shared perspective. The book will be of great interest to business managers, policymakers, and community leaders involved in combating climate change, and researchers and students of business, public affairs, policy, environment, climate, and urban studies.

In Resilience: The Science of Adaptation to Climate Change leading experts analyze and question ongoing adaptation interventions. Contributions span different disciplinary perspectives, from law to engineering, and cover different regions from Africa to the Pacific. Chapters assess the need for adaptation, highlighting climate change impacts such as sea level rise, increases in temperature, changing hydrological variability, and threats to food security. The book then discusses the state of global legislation and means of tracking progress. It reviews ways to build resilience in a range of contexts— from the Arctic, to small island states, to urban areas, across food and energy systems. Critical tools for adaptation planning are highlighted - from social capital and ethics, to decision support systems, to innovative finance and risk transfer mechanisms. Controversies related to geoengineering and migration are also discussed. This book is an indispensable resource for scientists, practitioners, and policy makers working in climate change adaptation, sustainable development, ecosystem management, and urban planning. Provides a summary of tools and methods used in adaptation including recent innovations Includes chapters from a diverse range of authors from academic institutions, humanitarian organizations, and the United Nations Evaluates adaptation options, highlighting gaps in knowledge where further research or new tools are needed

This book describes the urgent challenge faced by cities worldwide to become resilient to climate change impacts. This challenge goes further than the ability to resist the impacts of extreme weather conditions. Coping with climate impacts and the ability to recover from them are equally important, as well as the capacity to adapt to the effects of climate change and the ability to transform the entire urban system. The book explores how the resilience journey for coastal cities in particular encompasses using scientific knowledge but also the knowledge of citizens and practitioners. Measures and strategies on different scales are needed, from national scale all the way down to neighbourhood, street level and building level. Representing the holistic nature of climate resilience, this collection contains unique insights from leading scientists and practitioners in areas of expertise such as engineering, social sciences and urban design. It will be a valuable resource for scholars, students, practitioners and policy makers interested in the development of resilient and sustainable urban environments.

Climate Adaptation and Resilience Across Scales provides professionals with guidance on adapting the built environment to a changing climate. This edited volume brings together practitioners and researchers to discuss climate-related resilience from the building to the city scale. This book highlights North American cases that deal with issues such as climate projections, public health, adaptive capacity of vulnerable populations, and design interventions for floodplains, making the content applicable to many locations around the world. The contributors in this book discuss topics ranging from how built environment professionals respond to a changing climate, to how the building stock may need to adapt to climate change, to how resilience is currently being addressed in the design, construction, and operations communities. The purpose of this book is to provide a better understanding of climate change impacts, vulnerability, and resilience across scales of the built environment. Architects, urban designers, planners, landscape architects, and engineers will find this a useful resource for adapting buildings and cities to a changing climate.

Abstract: Prepared by the Committee on Adaptation to a Changing Climate of ASCE Civil infrastructure systems traditionally have been designed for appropriate functionality, durability, and safety for climate and weather extremes during their full-service lives; however, climate scientists inform us that the extremes of climate and weather have altered from historical values in ways difficult to predict or project. Climate-Resilient Infrastructure: Adaptive Design and Risk Management, MOP 140, provides guidance for and contributes to the developing or enhancing of methods for infrastructure analysis and design in a world in which risk profiles are changing and can be projected with varying degrees of uncertainty requiring a new design philosophy to meet this challenge. The underlying approaches in this manual of practice (MOP) are based on probabilistic methods for quantitative risk analysis, and the design framework provided focuses on identifying and analyzing low-regret, adaptive strategies to make a project more resilient. Beginning with an overview of the driving forces and hazards associated with a changing climate, subsequent chapters in MOP 140 provide observational methods, illustrative examples, and case studies; estimation of extreme events particularly related to precipitation with guidance on monitoring and measuring methods; flood design criteria and the development of project design flood elevations; computational methods of determining flood loads; adaptive design and adaptive risk management in the context of life-cycle engineering and economics; and climate resilience technologies. MOP 140 will be of interest to engineers, researchers, planners, and other stakeholders charged with adaptive design decisions to achieve infrastructure resilience targets while minimizing life-cycle costs in a changing climate

The impacts of climate change are already being felt. Learning how to live with these impacts is a priority for human development. In this context, it is too easy to see adaptation as a narrowly defensive task – protecting core assets or functions from the risks of climate change. A more profound engagement, which sees climate change risks as a product and driver of social as well as natural systems, and their interaction, is called for. Adaptation to Climate Change argues that, without care, adaptive actions can deny the deeper political and cultural roots that call for significant change in social and political relations if human vulnerability to climate change associated risk is to be reduced. This book presents a framework for making sense of the range of choices facing humanity, structured around resilience (stability), transition (incremental social change and the exercising of existing rights) and transformation (new rights claims and changes in political regimes). The resilience-transition-transformation framework is supported by three detailed case study chapters. These also illustrate the diversity of contexts where adaption is unfolding, from organizations to urban governance and the national polity. This text is the first comprehensive analysis of the social dimensions to climate change adaptation. Clearly written in an engaging style, it provides detailed theoretical and empirical chapters and serves as an invaluable reference for undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in climate change, geography and development studies.

A major objective of this volume is to create and share knowledge about the socio-economic, political and cultural dimensions of climate change. The authors analyze the effects of climate change on the social and environmental determinants of the health and well-being of communities (i.e. poverty, clean air, safe drinking water, food supplies) and on extreme events such as floods and hurricanes. The book covers topics such as the social and political dimensions of the ebola response, inequalities in urban migrant communities, as well as water-related health effects of climate change. The contributors recommend political and social-cultural strategies for mitigate, adapt and prevent the impacts of climate change to human and environmental health. The book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners interested in new methods and tools to reduce risks and to increase health resilience to climate change.