Climate change increases hazards for coastal cities where a large proportion of the world's population lives. Adaptation to its impacts ought to be a key focus for planning and policymaking in highly ...vulnerable countries like Australia. This responsibility, however, has been largely left to local councils with mixed results. This leaves substantial parts of the population at risk where adaptation plans are lacking. Even worse, since the impacts of climate change do not respect jurisdictional boundaries, there is a spill-over risk where good adaptation planning by one council may be undermined by the lack of action in an adjacent council. These risks can be reduced if state and federal governments provide more consistent support and guidance. This paper takes an integrated approach in comparing the relevant legislation, policies, plans, and strategies related to coastal management across the national and state/territory jurisdictions in Australia. The findings indicate that there are major differences, with some states (South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia, and Queensland) having more detailed policies and plans for addressing sea level rise and coastal flooding. The findings have implications beyond Australia, particularly for those countries with more devolved or federal systems of government, and provide key lessons for adaptation to climate change.
Key policy insights
In the absence of national guidance and leadership, climate adaptation responses will remain uneven across jurisdictions placing more of the population at risk and undermining what adaptation plans there are.
National, state, and territory policies or plans are more effective if they are consistent over time, but they are undermined by reversals when governments change between political parties that have widely varying views on climate change.
Effective long-term adaptation policymaking and planning therefore require a bipartisan commitment and consistent political will across the major political parties to prioritize the problem and commit significant public resources to a response.
Planning for extreme heat challenges is an urgent task for urban planners, designers, and managers because urban heat is a new normal climate-related challenge for many cities. However, how to ...integrate existing scientific outcomes and achieve the transformation from research to practice is a critical question. This study aims to frame a heat-resilient infrastructure system and an urban heat management plan (UHMP) to better promote heat solution implementation. This study analyses heat-related challenges, with China as a typical nation with highly urbanized and urbanizing cities, to demonstrate the urgency of preparing for an extreme heat era. This study then elucidates the fundamentals and methods for heat-resilient infrastructure and UHMP development, with a structure of prevention, preparation, mitigation, adaptation, and co-benefits approaches. Heat–resilient infrastructure was framed to ensure that society withstands, responds to, and recovers from heat–related impacts through actions of planning, design, construction, and operation, considering structural measures, non–structural measures, and a co-benefits approach. Furthermore, a UHMP framework was developed by determining the key mission, critical components, and associated agencies. Overall, this study provides planners, designers, and managers with theoretical and methodological frameworks to comprehensively understand heat solutions and increase their implementation capacity.
Display omitted
•Analysis of the urgency of mitigating and adapting to urban heat challenges.•Opportunities for implementing urban heat mitigation and adaptation.•Definition, framework, and components of heat-resilient infrastructure are given.•An urban heat management plan to guide mitigation strategies and techniques implementation.
Sediment precipitation in riverbeds influences the effectiveness of structural and non-structural measures for flash flood mitigation and increases the potential for flooding. This study aimed to ...disclose the effectiveness of the implemented measures for flood risk mitigation in Kassala town, eastern Sudan. We employed remote sensing (RS) and GIS techniques to determine the change in the Gash River riverbed, the morphology, and the leveling of both the eastern and western sides of the river. Flood model simulation and a 3D path profile were generated using the digital elevation model (DEM) with a data resolution of 12.5 m from the ALOS BILSAR satellite. The main purpose of this study is to extract the layer of elevation of the riverbed on both the western and eastern banks and to determine the variations and their relationship to flood occurrence and mitigation. The construction of dikes and spurs near Kassala town has led to sediment precipitation, causing the riverbed to rise. The results show that it is now 1.5 m above the eastern Kassala town level, with a steep slope of 2 m/km, and the cross-section area at Kassala bridge has shrunk, which indicates that the bridge body will partially impede the river’s high discharge and increase the potential for flood risk in the study area. The eastern part of Kassala town has a higher likelihood of flooding than the western side. This study suggests redesigning structural measures like widening the Gash River, extending Kassala bridge for normal water flow, strengthening early warning systems, and implementing soil conservation activities for normal water flow.
Chachoengsao province is a prime shrimp producing area for domestic consumption and exports. The province, however, is often threatened by floods. Improving the effectiveness of current flood damage ...protection is a major challenge. This research developed a flood risk map by combining the probability of flood events and a vulnerability map based on physical characteristics of the area and socio‐economic conditions of shrimp farmers (victims). Analysis of current risk reduction measures was performed by comparing the net benefits and costs of different strategies. Damage costs to shrimp farming from flooding were also estimated for the base case (a case with no change in actions). The flood risk map shows that two‐thirds of shrimp farms are highly vulnerable to flooding when a 10‐day accumulated rainfall is greater than 250 mm which is likely to occur every 2 years. Increasing dike heights could yield higher net benefits than other flood adaptation measures. Non‐structural flood controls such as early harvesting and shifting the crop calendar are alternative measures for shrimp farmers who lack financial supports. The results show that cost‐benefit analysis based on various scenarios can help in selecting an appropriate mitigation practice especially for shrimp farms located in a high risk area.
Flood risk management approaches have shifted toward the combination of both physical, engineered-centred and governance-based mitigation measures. Governance-based measures, previously perceived as ...a complement to structural measures, appear today prominent and, especially, are playing a dominant role in flood risk management. In the context of climate changes, the use of governance-based mitigation is believed to foster adaptability; governance-based mitigation measures may be changed along the way. However, the transition to governance measures, for the rural stakeholders in the Gironde estuary, raises some issues when it comes to their flexibility while implemented in combination with the existing structural measures. This paper analyses this combination in regard of the uncertainties related to climate changes.
Assessment of catchments water retention potential in the landscape is a common part of management plans as components of integrated flood risk management strategies. For forest land use, it has been ...stated that the promotion of sustainable forest management and the increase of forest land via afforestation will considerably improve flood retention. Notably, the latter should be efficient to re‐establish the natural water retention potential in anthropogenically disturbed river basins and to decrease the human‐made contribution to flood generation. However, due to obvious physical limitations (such as soil depth, porosity, and conductivity) and the frequent lack of available land for forest expansion, the role of afforestation in flood mitigation has been a topic of strong debate. This study assesses the ‘forest effect’ based on model calculations and suggests visualisations to communicate the results. For a catchment (6.8 ha) and two well‐founded land‐use scenarios, it could be shown that the peak reduction for flood events varies from 3% to 70% and is highly related to the event characteristics (especially pre‐event soil moisture). The cross compliance to other protection aims (i.e. water quality and soil protection) is part of the considerations.
PurposeClimate change has had serious consequences at the global and local levels, which has required more effective scientific studies and management measures for disaster risk reduction strategies. ...This paper aims to analyze and discuss the degree of institutional vulnerability in terms of disaster risk governance, with emphasis on non-structural measures taken in the municipality of Jaboatão dos Guararapes, Pernambuco, Brazil.Design/methodology/approachFive indicators were analyzed, composed of Planning and Management Instrument, Management Structure, Preventive Action, Multidisciplinary Work and Emergency Funds. It is worth highlighting the form application with government actors, involving technicians from strategic areas of the municipality and official reports analysis. It stands out the importance of non-structural measures to strengthen this governance.FindingsFrom the results of this study was noted that municipal management adopted measures to develop integrated planning, acting within the principles recommended in the Sendai framework (2015–2030), characterized as a medium degree of institutional vulnerability. Recommendations are suggested for the improvement of the entire governance system, according to the indicators and documents analyzed.Originality/valueThis article integrates a set of data and analyses relevant to the Disaster Risk Governance, regarding the assessment of institutional vulnerability with a view to non-structural actions. The importance and significance of the composed indicators allow measuring and evaluating institutional vulnerabilities. The methodology created fomented the production of scientific knowledge that allows employment in other municipalities.
The concept of flood risk management, promoted by the EU Floods Directive, tries to mitigate flood risks not only by structural, hydraulic engineering measures, but also by non-structural measures, ...like, e.g., land-use planning, warning and evacuation systems. However, few methods currently exist for the economic evaluation of such non-structural measures and, hence, their comparison with structural measures. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the potential benefits of employing a wider range of economic appraisal methods for flood projects, in particular, it provides examples and applications of methodologies which may be employed to evaluate non-structural measures and their transaction costs. In two case studies at the Mulde River, Germany, two non-structural measures, a resettlement option and a warning system, are evaluated and compared with structural alternatives with regard to their effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and efficiency. Furthermore, a simple approach is tested in order to show the transaction costs of these measures. Case study results show that the choice of evaluation criteria can have a major impact on the assessment results. In this regard, efficiency as an evaluation criterion can be considered as superior to cost-effectiveness and effectiveness as it is also able to consider sufficiently the impacts of non-structural measures. Furthermore, case study results indicate that transaction costs could play an important role, especially with non-structural measures associated with land-use changes. This could explain why currently these kinds of measures are rarely selected by decision makers.
In the last years, natural hazards related to flash floods have caused serious damage and losses to the population of the state of Rio de Janeiro. This research discusses the importance of ...implementing a methodology for the prevention of flash floods, by comparing the methods applied since 2013 in the city of Duque de Caxias, in the Baixada Fluminense region of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and the major prevention actions suggested by the Flash Flood Early Warning System Reference Guide from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, questioning civil defense professionals about the importance of each method to vulnerable communities. Even without the occurrence of an extreme event that proves the effectiveness of the method between 2014 and 2016, the population will certainly be better prepared to face the risks of disasters in the city in the future. In addition, the study also underscores an approach of approximation between academic studies and operational activities, which is still very incipient in Brazil.
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