Barriers to adaptation in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Preliminary findings

What Motivates Local Governments to Invest in Critical Infrastructure? Lessons from Chile

“…One of the most prominently discussed factors in the extant literature is the organizational capacities of public organizations, such as the municipal administration [14][15][16][17][18][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][51][52][53]. Capacities consist of resources available within an organization to enhance coping and reduce disaster risks, strengthen resilience, and include financial, human, managerial and technical expertise [14][15][16][17][36][37][38][40][41][42][44][45][46][47]49]. Scholars have underlined the importance of capacities for risk reduction and adaptation at the local scale [1,14,61,62].…”

“…Comparing cases of municipalities in South Asia and West Africa, Agrawal and Ribot [50] suggest that representation and accountability in local governments are critical to serve local needs efficiently and equitably, because it influences competition, balance of power, and responsibility in municipal decision making. Another part of the literature proposes that municipalities with greater degrees of coordination between departments, flexibility, and good governance practices facilitate beneficial information flows and framing for risk reduction and adaptation [15,18,20,42,57,58,75]. For example, exploring barriers and facilitators of adaptation in Canadian municipalities, Burch [57] encourages improvements in municipal regulations, procedures, and routines, and more interactions between departments and the municipal council.…”

Urban neighbourhood flood vulnerability and risk assessments at different diurnal levels

“…Currently 5.2 million properties in England and Wales are deemed to be at risk of flooding (Environment Agency, 2017). Yet within those at-risk areas, people and places will suffer differently according to their degrees of vulnerability (Birkmann et al, 2013), that is, the physical and socioeconomic characteristics or wider deprivation in those areas (Maantay & Maroko, 2009;Wilson, O'Brien, O'Keefe, & England, 2014). Understanding and identifying vulnerability at the right scale prior to undertaking new flood management approaches is vital in order to establish potential impacts within communities.…”

Urban adaptation to climate change in Europe 2016

“…Experiences from Newcastle, north-east England, show that adaptation planning and decision-making easily marginalises the most vulnerable groups of people (e.g. low-income single-parent families, pensioners, homeless people and migrants) or excludes them outright when sectoral policies do not fully integrate adaptation needs (Wilson et al, 2014). Budgetary pressures and competition for scarce resources are increasing, and we urgently need to integrate adaptation considerations better in sectoral policies and actions to ensure that they pay sufficient attention to both the short-term and long-term needs of the most vulnerable groups.…”

“…To motivate residents to participate, it is crucial that they be aware of climate change impacts and the need to act, the EU Cities Adapt project found. (Wilson et al, 2014).…”