Urban Vulnerability and Climate Change in Africa

Abstract

Future City DescriptionAs of 2008, for the first time in human history, half of the world's population now live in cities. And with concerns about issues such as climate change, energy supply and environmental health receiving increasing political attention, interest in the sustainable development of our future cities has grown dramatically.Yet despite a wealth of literature on green architecture, evidence-based design and sustainable planning, only a fraction of the current literature successfully integrates the necessary theory and practice from across the full range of relevant disciplines.Springer's Future City series combines expertise from designers, and from natural and social scientists, to discuss the wide range of issues facing the architects, planners, developers and inhabitants of the world's future cities. Its aim is to encourage the integration of ecological theory into the aesthetic, social and practical realities of contemporary urban development. More information about this series at

Beyond the plan: How land use control practices influence flood risk in Sekondi-Takoradi

“…It is therefore important to understand how the interaction of hazards and vulnerabilities takes place at the local level (families, communities and individual buildings) (Lavell et al 2012). More people in urban areas are exposed to flood risks because the process of urbanisation has amplified failures in the land use planning regime as our findings show (Oliver-Smith et al 2016; Wisner et al 2015).…”

“…The world is witnessing recurring episodes of flood hazards with succeeding events more severe than the previous (Douglas et al 2008). Notwithstanding, it is anticipated that climate change will increase the proportion of annual precipitation classified as heavy floods (Collins et al 2013; Erman et al 2018; Kirtman et al 2013; Wisner et al 2015). This endangers the lives of the vulnerable who live in flood-prone urban areas (Oliver-Smith et al 2016; Wisner et al 2015).…”

“…Flood-related disasters are increasing globally (Brown et al 2018; Wisner et al 2015). This has resulted in the destruction of human lives and properties worth billions of dollars (Brown et al 2018; World Disasters Report 2016).…”

Mainstreaming Climate Change Adaptation Planning in Tanzania’s City’s Master Plans. A Critical Review

“…Urban areas face many challenges such as many are characterized by informal settlements that lack access to basic services example water supply and sanitation, electricity, security of tenure and shelter which reach proportions of 60 percent to 80 percent (Pauleit et al, 2015). The IPCC AR5 realized that climate change impacts including increased temperatures, increased precipitation and sea level rise will continue to exist and exacerbate the already existing urban challenges (Collado et al, 2019;IPCC, 2019;UNFCCC, 2018).…”

Adaptation to climate change in coastal towns of between 10,000 and 50,000 inhabitants

“…This is because they usually have easy access to climate, engineering, and management knowledge; access to accurate and reliable local scale climate data; access to financial resources; local stakeholders' participation; and political consensus (Major and Juhola, 2016). Conversely, smaller settlements struggle to access these resources to the same degree and therefore have difficulties when it comes to developing and implementing climate change adaptation (Bell and Jayne, 2009;Birchall and Bonnett, 2019;Birkmann et al, 2016;Hamin et al, 2014;Paterson et al, 2017;Pauleit et al, 2015).…”