Coatal cities, flood risk management and adaptation to climate change

The potential impacts of climate change on large coastal cities have been addressed in the scientific literature over the past 10-15 years. Climate change and sea level rise may exacerbate flood risks from storm surges as well as peak discharges from rivers. As a consequence, the vulnerability of infrastructure, people, nature and other economic sectors is expected to increase in the decades to come.

At present, more than 50% of the entire world population lives in cities. According to the United Nations more than two-thirds of the world's large cities are vulnerable to rising sea levels, exposing millions of people to the risk of extreme floods and storms. Within the coming 30 years, the United Nations project that the number of people living in cities will increase to 60% of the world's population, resulting in even more people living in highly exposed areas. Hence, socioeconomic trends further amplify the possible consequences from future floods as more people move towards urban coastal areas and capital is continuously invested in ports, industrial centers and financial businesses in flood-prone areas.

Both scientists and policy makers have addressed the issue of adapting to the challenge of climate change, and both call for embedding long term scenarios in city planning and investments in all sectors. The Stern Review (2006) presented a global estimate of the costs of adaptation to climate change, suggesting that for most countries protection costs are likely to be below 0.1% of the gross domestic product (GDP), at least for protection measures that anticipate a 0.5-m sea level rise. However, for the most vulnerable countries or regions, costs could reach almost 1% of GDP, and for 1-m rise in sea level rise the costs could even exceed several percent of GDP. Based on these estimations of adaptation costs, it appears that investing in adaptation now would save money in the long term. However, developing and implementing adaptation measures is a complex process, and policy makers and investors may shift long term considerations to the future.

Since the choices made today will influence the vulnerability to climate risks in the future, it is important to link adaptation measures to ongoing investments in infrastructure and spatial planning, and to explicitly estimate the benefits of adaptation. In this way, adaptation becomes a challenge rather than a threat, and climate adaptation may initiate opportunities and innovations to investors and spatial planners. Challenges include, for example: are current city plans climate proof or do we need to fine-tune our ongoing investments? Can we develop a flood proof subway system? And can we develop new infrastructure such that it serves flood protection, housing and nature values? Furthermore, adaptation policies may address evacuation schemes, improved communication to both civilians and companies as well as post-event measures, such as insurance and emergency relief..

This book shows the different aspects of climate adaptation and is a joint initiative of the Cities of Rotterdam, New York and Jakarta. In this regard, each city faces different challenges; one of the lessons of the Connecting Delta Cities initiative is that while cities will follow adaptation paths that may differ, sometimes substantially, each city can learn from the others.

ISBN (EAN) 9789086593637
96 pages
hardcover
€ 25,00
Postage not included

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