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Christine Wamsler. Photo

Christine Wamsler

Professor, Docent, appointed Excellent Teaching Practitioner (ETP)

Christine Wamsler. Photo

From Risk Governance to City-Citizen Collaboration: Capitalizing on Individual Adaptation to Climate Change

Author

  • Christine Wamsler

Summary, in English

Urban societies are increasingly affected by climatic variability and extremes. In theory, adaptation policy creates the conditions needed to support autonomous adaptation – or deliver public adaptation if autonomous adaptation fails to develop. However, little attention has been given to autonomous adaptation by private households and individuals, and how it is taken into account in cities’ strategic adaptation planning. Against this background, this paper examines the synergies between measures taken by city authorities and citizens, and, more specifically, how public adaptation planning enhances or inhibits private (individual) adaptation. Based on a literature review and an in-depth study of German municipalities, existing types of city–citizen interaction are systematized. The results show that targeted city–citizen collaboration for climate change adaptation is practically non-existent. City authorities rarely pay sufficient attention to financial and structural aid for individual adaptation. Conversely, the available municipal support for individual adaptation has little take-up by members of the public. Furthermore, urban policy and planning often counteract collaboration and the implementation of measures that meet citizens’ capacities and needs. The paper concludes that improving city–citizen collaboration for adaptation co-production is an important step in fostering transformative adaptation, if the barriers and driving forces identified in the study are addressed. The framework that is presented advances theory on city–citizen interactions for adaptation co-production, providing a basis for related analyses, action and further research.

Department/s

  • LUCSUS (Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies)

Publishing year

2016

Language

English

Pages

184-204

Publication/Series

Environmental Policy and Governance

Volume

26

Issue

3

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Topic

  • Environmental Sciences

Status

Published

Project

  • Increasing Societies´ Adaptive Capacities to Climate Change: Distributed Urban Risk Governance for Achieving Sustainable Transformation and Resilience of Cities.

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1756-9338