Dear All,
Thank you once again for the rich discussion, and thank you Ignacio for sharing your experience from Montevideo and engaging in the debate.
Looking at the responses of participants regarding the integration of climate change considerations into land-use planning, we can see that very few cities have successful done this. In many cases where urban land-use planning is effective it is not yet considering the challenges posed by the changing climate. Some examples include:
- Dhaka (Bangladesh) which focuses much more on environmental issues such as pollution and does not focus on climate change challenges
- Harare (Zimbabwe) does have some plans for zoning, and some informal settlements are being re-planned but there is not a specific climate change focus
- Kathmandu (Nepal) does have risk sensitive land-use planning but climate change is not yet being considered
- Makurdi (Nigeria) does not include climate considerations in land-use planning
- Zambian cities are not yet including climate considerations in land-use planning
The cities from which we did see specific land-use planning processes to consider climate challenges included:
- Akwidaa & the Shama District (Ghana) have land plans to reduce further risks posed by climate challenges. These towns also used a successful participatory approach.
- Cape Town (South Africa) had the Spatial Development Framework that includes climate change considerations
- Gujarat & Maharashtra (India) town planning schemes have been successful
- Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam) has a planning that includes climate issue, but no plan enforcement
- Kampala (Uganda) where there is planning to create more space for housing and transport, and green spaced to respond to flooding and rising temperatures
- La Paz (Bolivia) has a plan that defines construction limits and is updated on a yearly basis
Many other cities were mentioned that do have elements of land-use planning, and some climate considerations are being taken into account but without the specific acknowledgement of this. For example Accra (Ghana) has some earmarked ‘green’ areas that may not be developed, Chennai (India) has a development plan that was developed in 2009 with some recommendations given climate change, Delhi & Ahmedabad (India) have a transit oriented development focus so as to reduce emissions.
What was interesting was that many participants shared converging ideas as to the barriers: why it is that climate considerations are not integrated into urban land-use planning, and what are the major downfalls of existing land-use planning tools.
Thank you once again for the rich discussion, and thank you Ignacio for sharing your experience from Montevideo and engaging in the debate.
Looking at the responses of participants regarding the integration of climate change considerations into land-use planning, we can see that very few cities have successful done this. In many cases where urban land-use planning is effective it is not yet considering the challenges posed by the changing climate. Some examples include:
- Dhaka (Bangladesh) which focuses much more on environmental issues such as pollution and does not focus on climate change challenges
- Harare (Zimbabwe) does have some plans for zoning, and some informal settlements are being re-planned but there is not a specific climate change focus
- Kathmandu (Nepal) does have risk sensitive land-use planning but climate change is not yet being considered
- Makurdi (Nigeria) does not include climate considerations in land-use planning
- Zambian cities are not yet including climate considerations in land-use planning
The cities from which we did see specific land-use planning processes to consider climate challenges included:
- Akwidaa & the Shama District (Ghana) have land plans to reduce further risks posed by climate challenges. These towns also used a successful participatory approach.
- Cape Town (South Africa) had the Spatial Development Framework that includes climate change considerations
- Gujarat & Maharashtra (India) town planning schemes have been successful
- Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam) has a planning that includes climate issue, but no plan enforcement
- Kampala (Uganda) where there is planning to create more space for housing and transport, and green spaced to respond to flooding and rising temperatures
- La Paz (Bolivia) has a plan that defines construction limits and is updated on a yearly basis
Many other cities were mentioned that do have elements of land-use planning, and some climate considerations are being taken into account but without the specific acknowledgement of this. For example Accra (Ghana) has some earmarked ‘green’ areas that may not be developed, Chennai (India) has a development plan that was developed in 2009 with some recommendations given climate change, Delhi & Ahmedabad (India) have a transit oriented development focus so as to reduce emissions.
What was interesting was that many participants shared converging ideas as to the barriers: why it is that climate considerations are not integrated into urban land-use planning, and what are the major downfalls of existing land-use planning tools.
- There are many other development priorities that come before climate resilience
- There is a lack of political push for climate resilience initiatives, and a lack of policy in place to enforce new rules
- Many times land-use planning is outsources to consultants that do not understand the local reality, and do not effectively communicate the results to urban dwellers
- Lack of capacity to plan land-use
- Lack of coordination between related departments and institutions
- It is very hard to enforce rules, and stop urban expansion in high risk areas for example. Many times this is because the public are not aware of the rules, other times it seems that it is because urban dwellers are not made aware of the risks and the reasons for the land-use policies. It was argued that this situation could be vastly improved upon by including community members in the development of land-use plans
Many participants commented that there is a need for raising awareness, which leads us nicely on to the second part of the discussion which was related to utlisation of multi-stakeholder groups in the development of urban land-use plans. All participants that commented on this question were in agreement that a holistic approach has many advantages and if effectively organised would have a positive effect on improving climate resilience. The most common advantage mentioned was that this kind of approach would enable community members to understand why land-use patterns need to change, and would thus be more willing to change.
In terms of cities using participatory methods to integrate climate change considerations into land-use planning we saw the following examples:
- Linda Dsane from Ghana shared the examples of Akwidaa and the Shama District. In this case a participatory community approach was used, and resulted in community members accepting that they needed to relocate. Land maps were used to prevent development on flood prone land.
- Edwards Kwaku Duah from Ghana explained an interesting approach that involves institutions and community members from the start of the design to the acceptance stage, although he did not mention the city that he was referring to.
- Sanap Aksha from Nepal spoke of the bottom up approach of Local Adaptation Plans and the involvement of the community (please see links for more details)
- Elangovan Balakrishnan from Chennai (India) shared information with us about a participatory process used for the City Development Plan in 2009 (please see links for more details)
As always, we welcome your comments on this summary.
All the best from Rio de Janeiro,
Charlotte & the ELLA Team
Related materials:
No comments:
Post a Comment