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participation in
adaptation – an
urgent challenge
Age Niels Holstein looks at some of the results of efforts to
engage urban communities in climate change adaptation, and
at the conditions necessary for sound participation in
adaptation strategies
As the effects of climate change have become
increasingly apparent in our everyday lives, so
awareness has been growing that, in addition to
continued determined action to mitigate climate
change, we will also need to improve our adaptive
capacities. We cannot afford to passively await major
flooding of our rivers as a result of increased rainfall,
or simply accept exacerbated health problems – and
even growing numbers of deaths – in our inner
cities as a result of heat stress in hot summers (as
experienced in the extremely hot summer of 2003).
Regional planning systems and urban spatial
planning can help to reduce the vulnerability to
these types of risk. Green infrastructure (including
public and private parks, productive landscapes,
green corridors and networks, and green roofs and
facades) and blue infrastructure (such as water
bodies, rivers, streams, and sustainable drainage
systems) are essential resources within the urban
landscape as we respond to the present and likely
future impacts of climate change.
The GRaBS project has resulted in a series of
Adaptation Action Plans for European regions and
cities, produced by the GRaBS partners and making
use of a GRaBS-developed climate change risk and
vulnerability Assessment Tool. But from the outset
of the GRaBS project it was clear that it would not
be sufficient simply to implement technical
adaptation responses within our urban landscapes.
The project’s justified focus on planning systems as
the appropriate institutional environment to deliver
lasting adaptation capacity was equalled by a sense
of urgency to involve and engage our local
communities in articulating, formulating and
implementing adaptation measures.
Adaptation is a basic mode of citizens’ interaction
with their living environment. By delivering socially
inclusive adaptation plans, we promote our cities as
environments that both flexibly absorb the
challenges of climate change and provide productive
and inspiring living conditions for current and future
residents and working communities.
This article 1 presents some of the results of a
continuing effort to engage local communities in
urban areas in climate change adaptation, and outlines
the conditions necessary for sound participation
processes in developing climate change adaptation
strategies. Even though, as yet, few of the GRaBS
project participation processes involving communities,
NGOs (non-governmental organisations) and
individual residents in climate change adaptation
strategies have been completed, the work done by
the GRaBS partners to promote community
engagement has nevertheless proved to be highly
relevant, demonstrating important drivers for and
barriers to urban participation practice on the ground.
Key dilemmas
When we begin to consider a planned response to
the challenge of climate, some important dilemmas
immediately come to the fore if we are also serious
about involving communities within the planning
process. These dilemmas are connected to some of
the characteristics of the multi-layered planning
tasks that responding to climate change entails:
● Timescales – long-term problems and
changing communities: Sometimes the link
between the solutions to a problem offered by a
plan and the interests of contemporary
stakeholders is not well established. A majority of
Town & Country Planning June 2011 : GRaBS Project – INTERREG IVC; ERDF-funded 291