Climate change adaptation in the urban planning and design research: missing links and research agenda

Abstract

This paper investigates the extent and the nature of how the urban planning literature has addressed climate change adaptation. It presents a longitudinal study of 157 peer-reviewed articles published from 2000 to 2013 in the leading urban planning and design journals whose selection considered earlier empirical studies that ranked them these journals. The findings reveal that the years 2006–07 represent a turning point, after which climate change studies appear more prominently and consistently in the urban planning and design literature; however, the majority of these studies address climate change mitigation rather than adaptation. Most adaptation studies deal with governance, social learning, and vulnerability assessments, while paying little attention to physical planning and urban design interventions. This paper identifies four gaps that pertain to the lack of interdisciplinary linkages, the absence of knowledge transfer, the presence of scale conflict, and the dearth of participatory research methods. It then advocates for the advancement of participatory and collaborative action research to meet the multifaceted challenges of climate change.

Keywords:

• physical planning
• urban design
• climate change adaptation
• mitigation

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the Partnership for Canada-Caribbean Climate Change Adaptation (ParCA) (http://parca.uwaterloo.ca/). We extend our gratitude to Professor Pierre Filion and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive and insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The Kyoto Protocol, adopted in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 and entered into force in 2005, is an international agreement linked to the UNFCCC, that commits its parties to set binding greenhouse gas (GHG) emission-reduction targets (UNFCCC 1998).

2. Agenda 21, adopted at the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992, reflects a global consensus and political commitment at the highest level on development and environment cooperation. It addresses global environmental problems to accelerate sustainable development for the twenty-first century (United Nations 1992).