Adapting Cities to Climate Change Understanding and Addressing the Development Challenges

This volume brings together, for the first time, a wide-ranging and detailed body of information identifying and assessing risk, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in urban centres in low- and middle-income countries. Framed by an overview of the main possibilities and constraints for adaptation, the contributors examine the implications of climate change for cities in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and propose innovative agendas for adaptation. The book should be of interest to policy makers, practitioners and academics who face the challenge of addressing climate change vulnerability and adaptation in urban centres throughout the global South. Published with E&U and International Institute for Environment and Development

Part I: Introduction * Adapting to Climate Change in Urban Areas: The Possibilities and Constraints in Low-and Middle-income Nations * Part II: Risk and Vulnerability for Cities * The Rising Tide: Assessing the Risks of Climate Change and Human Settlements in Low Elevation Coastal Zones * Climate Change and Coastal Cities: The Case of Mombasa, Kenya * Vulnerabilities and Responses to Climate Change for Dhaka * The Vulnerability to Climate Change of Cotonou (Benin): The Rise in Sea Level * The Vulnerability of Global Cities to Climate Hazards * Climate, Climate Change and Human Health in Asian cities * Climate Change and Urban Children: Impacts and Implications for Adaptation in Low- and Middle-income Countries * Unjust Waters: Climate Change, Flooding and the Urban Poor in Africa * Urban Poverty and Vulnerability to Climate Change in Latin America * Part III: Case Studies on Adaptation * Adaptation to Climate Change in Durban * Developing a Municipal Adaptation Plan (MAP) for Climate Change: The City of Cape Town * Adapting to Climate Change: Water Management for Urban Resilience * Part IV: Moving Forward * Climate Change Risk: An Adaptation and Mitigation Agenda for Indian Cities * International Funding to Support Urban Adaptation to Climate Change * Conclusions; Adaptation and Local Development

Jane Bicknell works with the Human Settlements Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and is Managing Editor of the international journal Environment and Urbanization. David Dodman is a Researcher in the Human Settlements and Climate Change Groups at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). He is co-editor (with Duncan McGregor and David Barker) of Global Change and Caribbean Vulnerability: Environment, Economy and Society at Risk (UWI Press, forthcoming). David Satterthwaite is a Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and is Editor of the journal Environment and Urbanization. He has written or edited various books published by Earthscan, including Squatter Citizen (1989, with Jorge E Hardoy), The Earthscan Reader on Sustainable Cities (1999) and Environmental Problems in an Urbanizing World (2001, with Jorge E Hardoy and Diana Mitlin). He contributed to the Third and Fourth Assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; in 2004, he was awarded the Volvo Environment Prize.