urbanization, climate risks and uncertainties

URBAN FUTURES* * * * * * * * * * *

www.ral.ucar.edu/csap/themes/urbanfutures

Urbanization, Climate Risks and Uncertainties

2014 NCAR Uncertainties in Climate Research An Integrated Approach

Paty Romero Lankao

Goal 1. Motivation

2. Research on urban areas, urbanization and risk to explore (un)certainties

a) Urbanization and urban areas

b) Scale

Shanghai

Mexico City 2012

Beijing geographyblog.eu

Urban Risk and Vulnerability Capacity

Romero-Lankao, Hughes, Rosas, Qin, Borquez, Lampis (2014)

1. Why urbanization, urban areas and risk? Motivation

• Research focus on – Exposure, vulnerability neglected– Negative impacts of urbanization

• Different definitions of urbanization and urban areas– Limit our understanding of

current/future differences in urban risk across and within countries

Rooted in place context, Urbanization: shifts in

• Economic dynamics and capital accumulation

• Demographics

• Culture and political influence

• Built environment and infrastructure

• Changes in ecosystem services and functions

No standardized definition of urban areas

• Politico-administrative boundaries

• Built-environment lay out (urban form)

• Economic, mobility, informational and operational connections (urban function)

• Socio-institutional, ecological and built-environment systems

What do we know about urbanization and urban areas?

1. Scale

• A five-fold increase of urban populations (1950-2011)

• In 2003, 3 billion urban dwellers; by 2030, 5 billion

Romero-Lankao and Gnatz: 2011

2. Rate• In 1950 we had 75 cities of 1-5 million people

• In 2011, 447

• By 2020, 527

Romero-Lankao and Gnatz: 2011

3. Location

Currently most urbanization is happening in

• Asia/Pacific and Africa

• Small and medium cities

Challenges and opportunities

Romero Lankao and Gnatz (2011)Data UN (2009) countries own reporting

Urban population projections, by region (2010–2020)

• Built-environment, infrastructure• Across and within countries• Within urban areas

• Across and within countries• Within urban areas • Some stabilizing, while others follow

different development trajectories

Romero-Lankao, Gurney, Seto et al., 2014

What are we uncertain about? Recent and future

Variations in urban form (risk-scapes)

Variations in urbanization and development paths

Why scale? Urban vulnerability and risk vary

– With the spatial, temporal, or analytical dimension used by scholars

– Across urban households, neighborhoods and cities

– Scale can influence a study’s findings (uncertainties)

Mexico City (Photo by Romero-Lankao)

Dynamics of urbanization shape risk (regional to global)

1. Not only exposure but also sensitivity and capacity Urbanization and economic

indicators to cluster countries

Cross-correlation of clusters with national-level normalized sub-indices of hazard exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity (World Risk Index 2012 )

2. Not only levels but also rates of urbanization influence vulnerability

Country groups

Source: Garschagen and Romero-Lankao 2013 Climatic Change

10

8

6

Exposure Sensitivity Lack of Adaptive capacity

Mexico: Risks and Challenges to urban adaptation across urban areas

Data

Hazard exposure Floods, droughts, storms… (Desinventar database)

Socio-demographic micro-census (12 million people) Education, income,

employment, age, gender,.. Access to infrastructure

Municipalities spatially aggregated into urban areas

Methods

Ordered Weighted Averaging to aggregate Hazard exposure index Vulnerability index

Plotting of each urban area in a two-dimensional space Y-Axis = hazard exposure X-Axis = vulnerability

Construction of single metric of risk Data Envelopment Analysis

Preliminary results

Preliminary results

Vulnerabiliby/Capacity and Adaptation vary across scale (Bogota, Buenos Aires, Mexico & Santiago)

Romero-Lankao (NCAR), Hughes (EPA), Hardoy (IIED), Qin (Missouri), Rosas-Huerta (UAM), Bórquez (Chile), Lampis (U. Colombia) (2014)

Note: blue= determinants of vulnerability/adaptation capacity black = actual adaptation actions

Informality shapes exposure, capacity and actual responses

• Wealthy forms of growth,

– enjoy state sanction

– receive infrastructural protections (in detriment of poor neighborhoods)

• Households in “illegal neighborhoods”

– Low, precarious income and benefits (buffers vs. hazards)

– Informal tenure of land and housing

• Prevents from accessing credit lines and insurance, stigmatizes

• Households with legally acknowledged ownership tend to invest more in home improvements

Buenos Aires

Uncertainty related to Research questions we ask

Methods and data we use

Scale: spatial, temporal, or analytical dimension of analysis