Does Policy Research Really Matter for Local Climate Change Policies?

This paper examines the role of policy-relevant research in climate change policy development. It attempts to address a practically important question: does policy research actually make a difference in the processes of formulating and institutionalizing local climate change policy? Two case studies from Central Java Indonesia are presented. The analysis focuses on the policy development processes in the cities of Semarang and Pekalongan, both of which were based on an urban climate vulnerability assessment. We discuss and compare the policy-making processes in terms of three analytic dimensions: the type of policy measures, agent, and policy approach. We examine the relationship between assessment outcomes and the efforts to institutionalize climate change policy in the two cities. These case studies show that although policy actors in both cities have developed strategies and policy measures for addressing climate change, the quality of policy-relevant research was a marginal consideration in the policy formulation processes. An established agenda within a policy network had greater impacts on policy-making than research outputs, which were articulated and used in the context of this agenda. Advocacy coalitions re-defined and re-interpreted what research has shown. Understanding this ability is key to ascertain why or why not policy-relevant research matters.     

How cities prepare for climate change: Comparing Hamburg and Rotterdam

This paper compares the different ways in which the cities of Hamburg and Rotterdam are taking preemptive action to adapt to climate change. Literature, interviews, secondary data, official statistics, project reports and policy briefs were used to identify institutional arrangements used by the city governments to encourage innovations in climate adaptation strategies and involve the private sector in climate change policy implementation. We focus on cases that create positive opportunities; exploring how innovations are facilitated within the theoretical frameworks of the Porter hypothesis and eco-innovation. We examine two possible pathways of climate change governance, firstly strict regulation and formal enforcement, and secondly institutional eco-innovation and voluntary measures. We found that different emphasis is placed on the preferred pathway in each of the case studies. Hamburg focuses on formal enforcements while the Rotterdam city government encourages institutional eco-innovation by acting as a platform and also providing incentives. Our findings suggest that a well-designed institutional framework can enhance innovation and increase environmental and business performance. The framework could vary in instruments and patterns, using both formal constraints and incentives to increase voluntary actions to shape policy. The formal rules could be stringent or incentivising to shape the climate change measures. The research aims to contribute to both practice and science by providing examples that might motivate and inspire other cities to design appropriate institutions for climate change policy implementation.     

河谷气候影响下的生态城市形态浅析 ——以重庆市奉节县整体城市设计为例

古往今来,气候特征对人类历史上 各种文明的产生和发展发挥着不同程度的作 用。虽然现代文明已经发展到可以抵御部分 气候带来的灾害,但是在目前所倡导的城市双 修、节能减排、绿色宜居,建设低碳生态城市 大背景下,通过城市的空间形态充分利用自然 气候带来的益处,减少不良气候带来的危害, 从而达到生态宜居,成为了城市建设的最终目 的。山地城市地形地貌复杂、生态环境敏感、 气候多变,在山地气候研究中又以河谷气候变 化最为复杂,河谷城市形态受气候及其它因素 影响与平原城市相比也有很大的不同。因此 本文选取具有典型河谷特征地形的奉节县为 例,研究通过城市形态利用较为复杂的局地 气候,最终达到建设生态城镇的目的。     

Citywide multi-grid urban flood modelling: the July 2012 flood in Beijing

Global flood management is a major issue for most cities which have to deal with worsening factors such as climate change and fast urban growth. Computer models have been used to model and understand urban flooding on a local scale in cities (25–50 km²). It has been practically impossible to model bigger cities in one go in sufficiently high resolution due to the heavy computations involved.

The present paper describes a new modelling approach for urban flooding which allows modelling on large city scale (1000 km²) while keeping sufficient resolution, e.g. 5 m or 10 m grid. The multicell approach is applied for the city of Beijing for July 21st, 2012 flood event. Model results are compared to testimonials from the 2012 event. Comparison to traditional 2D urban flood computations shows that the multicell approach is much faster than standard detailed models while keeping a suitable level of precision.     

Fukuoka: Adapting to climate change through urban green space and the built environment?

This paper profiles Fukuoka City in Kyushu, Japan. We focus on the city's local climate change adaptation policies, and in particular the role of urban and greenspace planning in facilitating adaptation actions within Fukuoka. Fukuoka is a humid subtropical city which is currently experiencing significant population and economic growth. It has also made comparatively rigorous advances in climate adaptation, in a country context where local governments have been criticised for focusing more on mitigation. Fukuoka hence may yield lessons for other rapidly urbanising subtropical Asian cities. We illustrate that Fukuoka has a long tradition of science-policy connection towards the creation of a liveable urban environment. This creates a favourable research and policy infrastructure for adaptation, in particular mitigation of heat risk. This is evidenced in consideration of climate issues within the city's greenspace plans since the 1990s, and in an extensive body of underpinning applied research from local institutions into urban thermal environments in particular. Fukuoka's green terraced ACROS building has come to symbolise adaptation via the built environment, and has been followed by the emergence of further green roofs and through citizen and private sector involvement in smaller-scale greening actions. We caution that challenges remain around connecting different sections of local governments, and in maintaining climate and environmental imperatives in the face of ongoing development and expansion pressures.     

基于生态系统的适应在气候变化适应性城市多尺度合作雨洪管理中的实践——以哥本哈根为例

气候变化已成为城市可持续发展的关键挑战。面对该问题,越来越多的学者和从业者关注了基于生态系统的适应（EbA）概念,将其作为管理区域生态系统服务、提高生态系统服务适应能力的高效并且可持续的手段予以推广。然而,目前鲜有研究关注EbA措施在气候变化适应性城市建设中在多尺度上与各利益相关者的合作规划实践。通过定性方法弥补EbA在城市多尺度气候适应计划实践这一领域应用研究的缺失,以欧洲著名的气候变化适应性城市以及欧洲绿色首都哥本哈根市为研究对象,分析了EbA如何纳入当地气候变化适应计划并在多个尺度上予以实施。回顾了EbA发展与其在欧洲的应用现状,分析了哥本哈根市气候变化适应政策以及EbA在市域、社区、单体建筑3个尺度的合作应用,并且通过分析哥本哈根市第一个气候弹性社区的案例,阐释哥本哈根市如何通过政府、企业、公民等多方利益相关者的合作规划将EbA措施应用于当地气候变化适应性城市建设。最后,总结了哥本哈根市多尺度气候变化适应合作规划中的EbA实践经验：1）项目前的深入数据准备和分析;2）EbA措施与城市空间景观设计的紧密结合;3）多个利益相关方协调,促进公众参与。加深了对EbA提升城市生态系统服务建设适应气候变化的城市的理解,并在面对气候变化挑战问题上,为包括中国城市在内的其他城市提供了启示与借鉴。     

全球气候变化下低碳城市实现的规划途径

对国内外低碳城市的理论研究和规划建设实践进行了回顾和总结,分析了全球气候变化背景下我国城市碳排放现状和低碳城市评价体系等方面的问题,并进而从实现低碳城市的规划途径方面,就低碳城市的目标和模式、城市空间结构、土地利用和交通模式等提出系列建议.     

Integrated urban microclimate assessment method as a sustainable urban development and urban design tool

In the past decades, urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon in the city and its corresponding issues including the mitigation methods have become the main research topics in the area of urban climatology. Researchers have conducted various investigations and measurements in the urban environment. Prediction models such as impact mitigation strategies, urban air temperature predictions, improved weather forecasting and air quality forecasting have been developed as a result. With the current issue of sustainable urban development in the cities, urban planners are beginning to look into different aspects of urban climatic parameters and incorporate them as the design parameters. However, it is rather difficult for the planners to attempt to design without engaging the urban climate scientists. Presently, Geographical Information System (GIS) is a platform commonly used in various geographical related research and applications, including those relating to urban climate research, as it can be used to analyze different urban climatic parameters. Although it is, by all standards, an appropriate urban design tool, urban planners tend not to embrace this technology. This paper shall present an idea to overcome this challenge by means of developing a user friendly urban design platform that takes after GIS. This paper will also discuss the plan for advancement of the urban design tool from the current situation to the future.     

气候弹性城市和规划研究进

气候变化严重威胁到城市的可持续发展,并给城市带来很多风险。因此,越来越多的城市将适应气候变化纳入工作范畴。文章的目的是回顾和审视现有的气候弹性城市规划理论和实践。首先分析了气候变化、城市化和城市气候灾害风险之间的关系,以及气候变化对中国城市发展带来的挑战;其次,论述了气候弹性城市的概念内涵和特征,指出规划和建设气候弹性城市是中国城市应对气候变化的重要途径。最后,从理论研究和行动计划两方面对气候弹性城市和规划研究进展进行综述。     

What we talk about when we talk about shrinking cities: The ambiguity of discourse and policy response in the United States

Although United States cities began to shrink in large numbers as early as the 1950s, the shrinking city discourse was obscured by the overriding “urban crisis” narrative, and did not emerge until much later, in the late the 1990s and 2000s. Rather than trigger national policy change, however, the discourse became the starting point for local action, epitomized in the efforts to address widespread housing abandonment through land banks and greening strategies, spearheaded by an informal alliance of local officials and both local and national sources of expertise, largely outside academia. At the same time, the term ‘shrinking city’ was widely seen as problematic outside scholarly circles, and a major element of the discourse was the ongoing search for acceptable terminology to refer to the class of shrinking cities. In the final analysis, however, the association of growth with success and shrinkage with failure in the urban lexicon remains largely unchallenged.     

墨尔本环境规划——对一体化水资源管理政策的批判性分析

本文概述了墨尔本城市规划政策中的环境因素,重点研究了其中的可持续水管理政策。对于严重缺水的圣尔本市而言,可持续的水管理政策是一个非常重要的问题。圣尔本的水量储备在过去10年里已经枯竭,同时气候变化的预测也表明其面临的缺水压力将日益严峻。这导致了激进的管理战略,例如限制本州某些地区的非必要用水。不单单是圣尔本,在澳大利亚乃至全世界其他很多地区都面临着缺水这样的问题。专门用于水管理的较长期的规划政策有助于解决这些问题并降低其进一步的影响。2006年10月引入维多利亚规划条例（VPPs）的“一体化水资源管理”（integrated water management）规定在新的细分条例中可能有助于使其转向更加可持续的供水和污水处理系统。本文介绍了“一体化水资源管理”政策,并对其进行了批判性分析,批判的中心主题是自由裁量与规制的发展控制之间的利弊。文献表明,这一政策的任意性将降低目标达成的可能性。因此,本文认为这一政策要想获得更大的成功,就应该更具规制性和创新性。最后本文探讨了在世界其他地区这类规定的适用性和有效性。     

Municipal Food Strategies and Integrated Approaches to Urban Agriculture: Exploring Three Cases from the Global North

At a time when the majority of world's population live in urban areas, the role of cities in addressing food system vulnerabilities is vital. One response has been a renewed focus by local governments in the global north on a host of individual food system issues. Still lacking are comprehensive municipal food strategies that take a coordinated approach to the food system as a whole. A municipal food strategy is an official plan or road map that helps city governments integrate a full spectrum of urban food system issues within a single policy framework including food production (typically referred to as urban agriculture (UA)), food processing, food distribution, food access and food waste management. This exploratory article examines factors that may affect the capacity of local governments in three global north cities to develop and implement their respective food strategies. It goes on to ask whether food strategies may enable UA, as the part of the food system that to date has garnered the most attention in both research and practice.     

绿色基础设施城市主义和气候变化

气候变化产生的环境影响：雨水污染加剧、城市洪水、海平面上升和城市热岛效应，已成为全球性问题。绿色基础设施（GI）越来越多地被推广为解决气候变化导致的环境恶化的“灵丹妙药”，尤其是在城市地区。城市本质上为高密度且不透水的空间，仅有少量的绿地来吸收预计增加的降雨量。位于沿海地区的城市容易受到海平面上升的影响，同时，大量的硬质表面会使空气温度的上升加剧。研究认为：可以利用绿色基础设施来改变当前的城市形态以构建应对环境影响的生态韧性。为了实现这一概念，必须将城市视为区域景观的一部分。采用一种基于流域的方法来探索如何用绿色基础设施改善气候变化对环境的影响，并使用推测性案例研究来证明这种方法，表明重新设计的城市形态可以优先安排绿色基础设施，而不会影响建筑项目和房地产投资回报。虽然该研究位于新西兰，但基于流域的方法也适用于中国的城市。     

基于气候适应性的中国古代城市形态研究

中国古城有数千年的历史,不同历史朝代的城市记录了不同时期的城市规划设计思想。其中有许多古代城市的规划设计手法对今天的城市规划有借鉴的价值。中国古代城市形态的气候适应性研究,对指导现代城市设计,创造和建设具有中国特色的现代化城市,继承和发扬地域传统文化,以及弥补古代城市建设史的学科缺失都具有重要的理论意义。该文采用训诂法等研究方法对历史文献资料进行了大量的调查和分析,深入分析古代城市选址、城市水系和城市布局的气候适应性,试图从一个全新的视角,系统整理基于气候适应性的古代城市形态。     

A scenario-based approach to assess Ho Chi Minh City’s urban development strategies against the impact of climate change

This paper presents an approach to quantifying current and future city-wide flood risks to Ho Chi Minh City. Here urban planning scenarios linking urban development and climate change explore the main driving forces of future risk. According to the redefined role of urban environmental planning in times of climate change, spatial planning needs to go beyond traditional planning approaches to bring together, draw upon and integrate individual policies for urban adaptation strategies for land-use planning. Our initial research results highlight that the spatiotemporal processes of urban development, together with climate change, are the central driving forces for climate-related impacts. The influence of planned urban developments to the year 2025 on future flood risk is seen to be significantly greater than that of projected sea-level rise to the year 2100. These results aid local decision making in an effort to better understand the nature of future climate change risks to the city and to identify the main driver of urban exposure.     

Urban climate change adaptation: Exploring the implications of future land cover scenarios

Different land cover futures will have contrasting implications for cities working to adapt to the changing climate. This paper explores this issue, reporting on the application of a scenario-based land use modelling case study focused on Greater Manchester in North West England. It highlights that the interplay between varied drivers of change has the potential to generate contrasting land cover futures for the city-region, which will in turn influence climate change adaptation prospects. The case study pays specific attention to green infrastructure cover, as this can enhance the capacity of urban areas to adapt to climate change by providing functions such as evaporative cooling and rainwater infiltration. The two scenarios analysed within this paper connect, broadly, to the contrasting processes of expansion and shrinkage that are shaping cities worldwide. Where cities are expanding, stimulated by economic growth and increase in population, the danger is that associated land use change will pressure existing green infrastructure resources with a detrimental impact on adaptive capacity. Cities that are shrinking, or experiencing relative decline in comparison to other cities, face a different set of issues. Here, the emergence of vacant land provides an opportunity to secure adaptive capacity benefits associated with green infrastructure. With the processes of expansion and shrinkage projected to continue to influence the global landscape of cities, this research highlights that strategies are needed to protect and enhance green infrastructure in both contexts in order to maintain and build adaptive capacity and moderate climate-related risks.     

Is Bangkok becoming more resilient to flooding? A framing analysis of Bangkok's flood resilience policy combining insights from both insiders and outsiders

The rapidly urbanizing cities in Southeast Asia experience increasing flood impacts due to the consequences of climate change. In these cities, policy efforts to build flood resilience are gaining momentum. The aim of this paper is to understand and assess flood resilience policy development, particularly in cities in developing countries. Bangkok is one of the cities that participates in the 100 Resilient Cities Programme (100RC) - the international policy platform for building resilient cities. In 2017, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) launched the ‘Bangkok Resilience Strategy’ to translate the resilience concept to its urban context. A framing perspective is adopted to reconstruct the strategy, process and anticipated outcome of Bangkok's flood resilience policy. We studied data obtained from ‘insiders’ (involved policy makers, experts and consultants) and ‘outsiders’ (local communities, civil society organizations and news media). Findings indicate that the economic growth frame is prevailing in the development of Bangkok's flood resilience policy, prioritizing structural flood protection with little attention for flood adaptation measures and related social impacts among vulnerable communities. The role of local communities and civil society in the formulation of Bangkok's flood resilience policy is limited. This paper therefore recommends cities in developing countries and cities in the 100RC Programme to organize a more inclusive resilience building process for addressing social problems regarding urban poor communities along with increasing flood safety and protection.     

上海城市交通政策的顶层设计思考

首先分析了城市交通与城市发展及可持续发展的关系,指出包括城市规划和城市交通规划内的城市管理能力是实现人们享受较高的城市交通方便性(城市机动性的提高),同时避免城市交通的外部性及对城市环境和全球气候环境的影响的重要因素。正是由于有比较明确的城市交通政策导向,面临城市快速经济发展和城市面积的扩展,与国内一些曾经希望适应小汽车发展的城市相比,上海城市交通状况和城市环境质量具有明显的优势。为此,对上海的城市交通政策的作用进行了系统的分析,指出在新的发展形势下一些曾经十分有效的政策其作用正在降低,人们必须对上海城市交通政策的顶层设计进行调整,将上海建设成为世界绿色城市交通之都     

Why underground space should be included in urban planning policy – And how this will enhance an urban underground future

Cities worldwide tend to overlook an invaluable asset that lies beneath their surfaces. Most cities and urban regions are unaware of the benefits underground space use has to offer, both for climate inflicted and spatial constraints: In many cities, infrastructure development is being outpaced by population growth. Climate change effects are requiring radical new approaches in terms of coping with for example excessive rainfall. The available space at the surface is rapidly being used up and the biggest danger is that built-up spaces are taking over the public green spaces of cities thereby threatening livability and quality of life. Urban underground space forms a societal asset, which is often unappreciated and underestimated in terms of the role it can play within dynamic city environments and associated challenges.This paper will explore the ways in which urban underground space can be optimally integrated into the dynamic urban context. It also explores the often contradictory functions that make underground space use complicated from a planner’s perspective. The first-come-first-served strategy of underground space use has left many cities wondering how they are going to cope with the self-inflicted “chaos” under the surface. The often mono-functional uses of the underground lead to sub-optimal space use. Most cities and urban regions are unaware of the benefits underground space use has to offer. In guiding the future use of urban underground space, a comprehensive policy framework guiding its development is lacking on which decisions can be based. This often leads to the non-sustainable use of this important asset. It will be argued that both vision and planning are needed to be able to make the best use of this underrated underground real estate.The authors will also debate that just understanding the potential of underground space is not enough. Realising its actual potential and facilitating its development will require a spatial dialogue between many stakeholders, including planners, engineers, developers and public decision makers.