Changing Land Use to Mitigate Climate Change
Last Updated (Wednesday, 06 May 2009 11:39) Written by Chris Zevenbergen Tuesday, 05 May 2009 19:00
Dubrovnik, Croatia | May 7-9, 2009
According to the American Planning Association "The built environment is a primary contributor to climate change,...[thus] Planners must play a key role in promoting energy efficiency in the existing built environment and changing development patterns, transportation systems, and regulations in way that reduce green house gases."
To gain an international perspective on how this can be done, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education at the University of Maryland, and the Habiforum Foundation in the Netherlands are co-sponsoring an international workshop on how urban planning can address climate change, May 7-9, 2009, in Dubrovnik, Croatia.
The underlying assumptions of the workshop are three-fold:
- The election of President Obama in the United States marks the beginning of a new era in U.S. and international policy approaches to climate change;
- Innovative approaches to climate change have already been launched at the local and regional levels in Europe and the United States; and
- There is much to be gained from the exchange of information on planning approaches to climate change across the Atlantic.
Purpose
The purpose of the workshop is to identify and disseminate across the Atlantic new techniques, policies, analytical tools, and lessons learned on land use planning to mitigate climate change. Discussion items will include strategies for reducing greenhouses gases by lowering vehicle miles traveled, carbon sequestration via tree cover and open space protection, and energy savings via sustainable urban design. More specifically, the workshop will address three questions:
- What land use plans and strategic actions are currently being taken to address climate change at the local and regional levels in Europe and the United States?
- How effective are those strategies and what needs to be done to make them more effective? And,
- What role should state, national and international levels of government play in shaping land use policies at the local level?
Participants
FRG is participating in this workshop that includes three sets of individuals from both sides of the Atlantic: representatives of local or regional governments that have adopted innovative approaches to land use planning; scholars with expertise in planning, transportation, energy, and urban design; and policy makers from influential national and international organizations.
Vulnerability to Coastal Flooding
Last Updated (Wednesday, 06 May 2009 11:41) Written by William Veerbeek Friday, 27 March 2009 17:35
In 2007, the OECD published an alarming report entitled ‘Ranking of the world's cities most exposed to coastal flooding today and in the future’. The ranking is based on the exposed population and assets towards coastal flooding in the present (2005) and future (2070).
The analysis demonstrates that a large number of people are already exposed to coastal flooding in large port cities. Across all cities, about 40 million people (0.6% of the global population or roughly 1 in 10 of the total port city population in the cities considered here) are exposed to a 1 in 100 year coastal flood event. The exposure is concentrated in a few of the cities: the ten cities with highest population exposure contain roughly half the total exposure and the top 30 cities about 80 percent of the global exposure. Of these thirty cities, nineteen are located in deltas. For present-day conditions (2005) the top ten cities in terms of exposed population are estimated to be Mumbai, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Miami, Ho Chi Minh City, Kolkata, Greater New York, Osaka-Kobe, Alexandria and New Orleans.
The FRG has made a map on which the ranking for the present cituation is presented. Most of these largest port cities are found in Asia (38%), and many of them (27%) are located in deltaic settings, again mainly in Asia. Cities in deltaic locations tend to have higher coastal flood risk as a result of their tendency to be at lower elevations and experience significant (natural and anthropogenic) subsidence.
Click on the image to enlarge.
Data provided by: Nicholls, R. J., Hanson, S., Herweijer, C., Patmore, N., Hallegatte, S., Corfee-Morlot, J., Chateau, J. and Muir-Wood, R., Ranking of the world's cities most exposed to coastal flooding today and in the future, Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), 2007
Buzz Holling wins 2008 Volvo Environment Prize
Last Updated (Friday, 27 March 2009 17:36) Written by William Veerbeek Tuesday, 24 March 2009 19:11
Buzz Holling, the father of resilience science and the founder of the Resilience Alliance has won the 2008 Volvo Environment Prize.
UFM Dordrecht partners visit St. Louis, Senegal
Last Updated (Wednesday, 25 March 2009 21:34) Written by Jeroen Rijke Tuesday, 24 March 2009 15:05
In the first week of March, the FRG has coordinated a fact finding mission to St. Louis in Senegal within the scope of the UFM St. Louis project. Within this project a framework for cooperation is developed between Waterboard Hollandse Delta, City of Dordrecht, Deltares and UNESCO-IHE and Senegalese land and water management authorities. During the fact finding mission, a team of four Dutch representatives investigated the practice of land and water management in the city of St. Louis from an urban flood management perspective.
Although there are many obvious differences between Dordrecht and St. Louis, it was found that there are many similarities as well. For example, the city of St. Louis faces several transitions that are also taking place in Dutch delta cities such as Dordrecht. Firstly, there is a transition towards a more integral approach taking place in which insights from different disciplines such as spatial planning, water management and ecology are being considered in urban development. Secondly, the value of local knowledge and involvement of the community is increasingly being recognised.
The similarities between Dordrecht and St. Louis provide a starting point for a long term partnership between land and water authorities in the two cities. Along with the project and the preliminary conclusions of the fact finding mission, this has been discussed by a group of representatives from the Netherlands and Senegal at the World Water Forum in Istanbul. In the coming year, a student will write his MSc thesis at UNESCO-IHE in which the findings of the fact finding mission will be used as a base for further cooperation between the partners of UFM Dordrecht and St. Louis.
For more information, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Call For Participation: Road Map Towards a Flood Resilient Urban Environment
Last Updated (Friday, 20 March 2009 14:31) Written by William Veerbeek Friday, 20 March 2009 14:26
As members of the COST C22 Action on Urban Flood Management, the FRG is involved in the organization of the Conference entitled "Road Map Towards a Flood Resilient Urban Environment" in Paris on November 26th/27th 2009. Call for Participation:
As a consequence of climate change, increasing urban population and economic development great uncertainty exists about the necessary adaptation of the urban environment to flood risk. This calls for response strategies which manage the flood risk in a more flexible and holistic way. This requires a portfolio of mitigation and adaptation measures which together will have a positive impact on the source, the pathway, the receptor and the consequences of any flood event. Traditional flood defence measures which mainly have an impact on the pathway need to be further extended with the greater utilisation of non-structural flood mitigation and adaptation measures. Policy makers and recent scientific developments show that together traditional and non-structural flood defence strategies will lead to more flood resilient cities.
It is the objective of this conference to highlight the recent advances in the progression towards Flood Resilient Cities. The conference intends to provide politicians, policy and decision makers, researchers and practitioners the platform to present and discuss their experience, new trends and technological innovation in the area of flood risk management.
On behalf of COST (European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research) and its action C22 “Urban Flood Management”, we invite you to join us in Paris, France from 26th-27th November 2009 for an event you should not miss!
For more info, go here
More Articles...
- Integrated Urban Flood Risk Management at WWF5 Istanbul
- MARE project launched at the 5th World Water Forum in Istanbul on March 17th
- Deconstructing urban flood damages: increasing the expressiveness of flood damage models combining a high level of detail with a broad attribute set
- DOCKSTAGE: Floating Theatre
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