Document type
Book chapters
Title
Routes to a climate resilient city with climate services: the examples of Nijmegen and Lisbon
Participants in the publication
Ingrid Coninx (Author)
Wim Timmermans (Author)
Rob Swart (Author)
Luís Filipe Dias (Author)
cE3c/FCUL
cE3c
Maarten van Ginkel (Author)
Summary
Climate change can be a driver for cities to become frontrunners in terms of both climate mitigation (for instance, in moving towards carbon-neutrality) and climate adaptation in developing green and liveable cities. In metropolitan areas, climate threats such as floods, heat and drought, have a significant impact on nature, the economy, human health and well-being. The concentration of people, infrastructure and other assets makes cities vulnerable to climate risks as they have rarely been designed with climate change in mind. In 2009, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) introduced the concept of ‘climate services’ to improve the accessibility of the vast amount of available climate data in a way useful for those who would need them. Since then, the concept has evolved from ‘science-driven and user-informed’ to ‘user-driven and science-informed’, actively supporting climate change responses by citizens, companies, economic sectors, and cities (see for instance European Commission, 2015). Climate services are tools, products and processes that can help to integrate climate information into urban policymaking and design for improving urban resilience. Because of the long-term nature of climate change, climate services force urban developers to adopt a long-term, transformative perspective in urban planning and design. This chapter elaborates on how climate change can be a driver for green urban development, by pursuing resilience with the help of climate services. Two illustrative cases are presented: Nijmegen (the Netherlands) and Lisbon (Portugal). We also illustrate the importance of the next generation of climate services to go beyond risk assessment by informing the design of response measures like nature-based solutions. The cases illustrate the modalities of climate services to trigger action: climate services have to be flexible and tailored to the specific local situation and they should be integrated with other urban challenges in order to develop innovative multifunctional urban solutions.
Date of Publication
2022-06-13
Where published
The symbiotic city
Publication Identifiers
eISSN - 978-90-8686-935-0
ISBN - 9789086863839
Publisher
Wageningen Academic Publishers
Document Identifiers
DOI -
https://doi.org/10.3920/978-90-8686-935-0_6