Resilience and climate change in rural areas: a review of infrastructure policies across global regions

ABSTRACT

The role of policy frameworks for infrastructure in respect of resilience and climate change remains under-explored. This article contributes to this field of research by examining how infrastructure policy in rural areas regarding climate change is planned and implemented across different regions in the world. The study combines documentary and literature reviews from initiatives undertaken at regional, national and local levels. The literature draws on the related policy experiences in North America, South America, Asia, Australia and Africa. The findings show that, both hard and soft approaches can enhance infrastructure related climate change resilience. However, most of these strategies are still in experimental stages or taken at national level. As a result, the attempts initiated do not tally with the capacity and climate change challenges of rural regions. Rural regions, based on their unique characteristics, call for different infrastructure-climate change resilience strategies in order to be effective.

KEYWORDS:

• Planning
• poverty
• development
• capacity
• environmental management
• resilience

Acknowledgments

The study acknowledges the need for a systems approach to the planning of rural infrastructure components. In other words, there is need to consider the attributes of an entire system to solve a particular problem. Research on climate change challenges in specific rural areas forms the basis for informing any initiatives to foster critical infrastructure resilience to climate change threats, since the threats are contextual and, therefore, unique to a particular region.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Innocent Chirisa

Innocent Chirisa is a professor in the Department of Demography Settlement and Development, University of Zimbabwe. He is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Zimbabwe and a Research Fellow in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of the Free State, South Africa.

Verna Nel

Verna Nel is a professor of urban and regional planning in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of the Free State in South Africa.