Climate Change Adaptation

Changes to our climate will be one of the greatest challenges that we are likely to have to face in the 21st Century.

Whilst climate science and the mitigation agenda have tended to occupy research and policy agendas in recent years there is now a growing recognition that communities also need to be preparing for change that we are not able to prevent through mitigation efforts – in essence, we need to be planning now for how best to manage the unavoidable impacts of future change that is already ‘locked’ into the atmospheric system. Indeed, recent accumulation of evidence suggests that significant adaptation efforts will be needed if communities are to be made more resilient to future climate-related risks. Of particular concern are the predicted increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme events and their impact on vulnerable people, their physical surroundings, and livelihoods. 

Drought, heat waves, flooding, sea level rise (and storm surge), and wind storm events; represent a portfolio of hazards that may potentially affect different geographical locations and elements at risk across the world (dependent on their exposure and vulnerability). The continent of Australia, which is well accustomed to significant weather-related impacts – as highlighted by bushfires in some areas and flooding in others, with most areas experiencing water shortage and heat stress in urban centres, and a changing prevalence of pests and diseases - needs to prepare for an amplification of these stressors over time.

New emerging problems, such as regional food production, consumption, and security, may also come to the fore with global environmental change. These examples provide a stark illustration that future changes to the climate are likely to impact in a variety of adverse ways, and on a society very different from today’s, with climate change impacts ultimately only one of a number of multiple stressors. These, when viewed holistically, constitute a complicated system of human-environment interactions which need to be better understood if responses are to be effective, of sufficient flexibility to account for conditions of uncertainty, and acceptable to local communities.

This provides the underlying rationale for the Climate Change Adaptation Programme. The primary focus of research activity is the likely impacts facing different ‘elements at risk’ in the urban environment – categorised broadly as critical infrastructure, buildings, space between buildings, and people – and the often diffuse portfolio and nature of different possible adaptation responses (from technological through to institutional), and the barriers and opportunities for change. Due to the complexity involved with the subject matter, CCAP applies a ‘prism’ of analysis that enables research questions to be tackled according to different hazards, sectors, spatial scales (from conurbation down to individual buildings), and case study locations (the Asia-Pacific region being a key component of the CCAP remit, with a specific research interest in sustainable urban development in Vietnam and China).

The research approach is one based on the integration of quantitative (modelling), qualitative (scenarios) and participatory methodologies; with an active promotion of multi-disciplinary working, reinforced by new forms of engagement between scientific, policy, and wider stakeholder communities.  Whilst cities form the centrepiece of attention, it is recognised that the urban system cannot be understood in isolation from its regional and global hinterlands, and as such multi-level influences and interactions (particularly urban-rural linkages and State-wide climate-related issues) are considered explicitly by the programme where relevant. This additional emphasis is reinforced by the leader of CCAP having direct involvement through his role as Deputy Director of the Victorian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Research.

Research Agenda

The Climate Change Adaptation Program (CCAP) research agenda is structured according to six discrete themes.

1. The characterisation of climate-related risks, and evaluation of potential adaptation options, for different ‘elements at risk’ in the city of Melbourne (infrastructure, buildings, the space between buildings, and people) using an integrated approach to the research. Urban–rural linkages, and regional issues, for the State of Victoria are also considered where necessary; 
2. Collaboration with other national institutions to undertake strategic and multi-disciplinary research which leads to a better understanding of the climate-related risks, and adaptation options, facing Australian cities; 
3. Better understanding of adaptation as an institutional process, with consideration of structural driving forces (political, economic etc), risk perceptions of different actors in the urban regime, institutional adaptive management, barriers to (and opportunities for) change, and the building of local adaptive capacity; 
4. Collaboration with academic and non-academic partners in the Asia-Pacific region to assess climate-related risks facing vulnerable urban settlements, identify and evaluate adaptation options, to replicate and test assessment methodologies developed in an Australian context, and actively promote the transference of knowledge and toolkits with countries in the Asia Pacific region in order to contribute to the building of local adaptive capacity (as well as disseminating findings to an international audience);
5. Involvement with global frameworks / networks of cities that actively share knowledge of good adaptation practice (cities as laboratories of innovation); 
6. Identification and communication of barriers and opportunities to adaptation in the urban environment in the form of risk assessment and adaptation best practice guidelines (i.e. mapping out strategic pathways to more climate resilient communities, consideration of adaptation – mitigation synergies and conflicts, mainstreaming adaptation considerations into policy and urban management processes).