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Using unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) in security has become common in the Czech Republic. This paper focuses on using drones as an example of the application of smart technologies in conjunction with the Internet of Things (IoT) and state security forces, especially in cooperation with the police, fire and medical emergency services in the context of the new Smart Cities concept. Drones are one of the most suitable examples of use along with IoT within the security sector, which play a key role in the daily protection of citizens' safety, public order security and crisis management. It is related to developing and implementing 5G networks, which allow real-time transmission of data obtained by drones directly to information systems, and is also gaining importance. This technology enables fast and efficient communication between the different actors involved in an intervention and creates a platform for fast and effective emergency response. Among other things, paying attention to cybersecurity, such as securing data transmissions, protecting against cyber threats, complying with security standards and legislation, and introducing special procedures and methodologies applicable in crisis, is essential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contemporary economy paradigm is globalization. This paper contains the interdisciplinary expertise on the innovative solutions of sustainable development of urban areas and cleaner environment. Due to inequality between the developed and undeveloped parts on the regions and countries, big migrations are happening. The result is recognized in overcrowded cities. Concentration of people on small areas produces serious negative consequences on the environment and the quality of the life. This paper aims to point out innovative models of cities from the perspective of sustainable development. New population migrations, relating to their elementary and civilization needs require better solutions. Holistic concept of blue green cities is the latest and the most advanced stage in sustainable development for urban areas. Different renewable energy implementation models and principals of circular economy up to zero waste are researched in this manuscript, representing support of the main idea of blue green cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transformative adaptation (TA) places emphasis on changing the underlying causes of climate risk. Little is known about how TA can be achieved in practice in southern African cities. This paper reports on a set of criteria, derived from the literature and transdisciplinary engagements, for taking TA from theory into practice. These are: fundamental/sustainable changes in thinking and doing; inclusivity; challenging power asymmetries; demonstrability; responsive and flexible; and holistic, complex systems thinking. These criteria were explored through five water-related projects in Durban (South Africa) and Harare (Zimbabwe), which were identified by actors as having transformative potential to reduce urban climate risks. The study suggests that trade-offs might need to be made between several of these criteria, with strong synergies between others. Challenging power asymmetries is important in southern African cities where adaptation should change the structures of society that give rise to highly differential climate vulnerabilities. Challenging power structures largely requires true inclusivity and an equal stake in shaping decisions as opposed to tokenistic participation. While TA is needed in southern African cities, the complexity of these contexts and the scale of TA ambition introduces practical challenges when compared with incremental adaptation, i.e. small changes to existing practices to reduce climate impacts within the current development paradigm. Given such practical limitations, the paper concludes that TA in southern African cities might pragmatically be attempted as part of a process of ongoing learning to identify opportunities for gradual restructuring and expanding, in scale and ambition towards transformation. • Incremental adaptation achieves demonstrable results quickly. • Transformative adaptation needs to expand activities gradually in scope and scale. • Trade-offs exist at points along the incremental-transformative continuum. • Greater inclusivity in transformative adaptation introduces governance challenges. • Going beyond incremental adaptation requires challenging power asymmetries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore how precarious work is being globalized across urban space. We tie the devaluation of labour to the growth of multi-scalar inequality through the COVID-19 pandemic and in the context of urban austerity. We also seek to identify opportunities for rebuilding worker power through a radical anti-capitalist politics attuned to cities in crisis. We argued that this unevenness across multiple scales creates openings and possibilities for future resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conservation of natural resources seeks the proper use of nature, while preservation seeks protection of nature from abuse. Both strategies can work only if the value of nature's precious resources is understood by masses. In recent decades, concerns have arisen about the valuation of forest areas specially those which are falling within the limits of metropolitan cities of the world. 'Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES)' concept, a subcategory of the broader term 'Ecosystem Services (ES)' is gaining importance in scientific literature due to the realization of their significant contribution towards human health and well-being. The valuation studies in ecosystem services discourse have been long dominated by ecologists and economists. However, the dearth of literature on social-perception of forest ecosystems, is not only limiting to CES research but also to effective landscape planning, management and decision-making to conserve this important natural resource in cities. This paper critically analyses the importance of CES concept for their conceptualization and classification for place-based values to be used in wider assessment processes. Our aim is to provide an overview of CES evaluation methods and highlight challenges faced during the process of assessment. Based on the conceptual review, we initiate a discussion of requirement of in-depth studies to be conducted from socio-ecological perspective and their integration in policy support tools for urban planning in Indian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While climate adaptation planning and implementation is gradually increasing across the globe, there is a documented gap between what is done and what needs to be done. Researchers have documented climate adaptation efforts at the strategic policy-making level and in urban planning practices, but less is known about how cities navigate the intricacies of climate adaptation policy-progression in the existing built environment. Contributing to the analytical unpacking of how to reduce policy implementation gaps, this paper targets ten Swedish early adopter cities seeking to proactively and pragmatically progress with their climate adaptation efforts from policy-formation to implementation in the urban built environment. Qualitative analyses of interviews and policy-documents illustrate that the cities, despite their early adopter status, struggle with stepwise policy-progression and get stuck when approaching implementation. Ensuring appropriate climate adaptation in the existing urban built environment becomes problematic due to current legal distribution of responsibilities, diverse land-ownership patterns and path-dependent structures and configurations within cities that are dense, intricate and tightly developed over of time. We identify three pragmatic action-strategies adopted to create solution space and allowing the cities to proceed: event-driven, target-driven and opportunity-driven climate adaptation, each having their advantages and disadvantages for ensuring urban robustness, as well as different requirements for up-scaling. The analysis enables important lessons of climate adaptation policy-progression, the promise and pitfalls of stepwise adaptation and the necessity of pragmatic muddling that is required to make climate adaptation work in the existing urban built environment. • There is an implementation deficit in climate adaptation policymaking and planning. • Research on implementation outcomes, practices and solution-space is needed. • Cities struggle with stepwise policy-progression in the urban built environment. • Three pragmatic action-strategies are adopted, conditioning and enabling action. • Mixing strategies allows balancing long-term strategy and emerging opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children account for about 34% of the urban population in India. However, they continue to be forced daily consumers of adult-designed built environments. A total of 45 children die daily from road accidents. This paper discusses the findings of a case study of an interactive curriculum spanning nine modules, which aided grade IV students of a school in New Delhi to re-imagine and co-create a safer school street. The curriculum is part of the Crosswalk Program by HumanQind. The program is focused on and aligned with the frameworks of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals on road safety, human rights, and human-centric urban development. • This paper discusses the findings of a pilot study on reimagining a school street with children. • Codesigning streets can provide safety and yield an equitable and ethical outcome. • Children identify 250 m of street as a safe zone, which is significantly higher than current school frontage. • A symbiotic relationship between mobility and sustainable development goals is formed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper seeks to understand how co-production can become embedded as a collaborative governance practice by which city governments plan, deliver and steward nature-based solutions. To these ends, the paper analyses how policy officers manifest capacities for co-production in three European cities – Genk (Belgium), Glasgow (United Kingdom) and Poznań (Poland) – while experimenting with co-production to develop and scale nature-based solutions. Co-production capacities include conditions and activities to (1) create space for co-production, (2) safeguard inclusive and legitimate co-production, and (3) link co-production processes and results to contexts. The results demonstrate how policy officers in the three cities have mobilised and created resources, skills, institutional support and partnerships to implement diverse processes to co-produce nature-based solutions. While these conditions mark starting changes in urban governance, engaging with and embedding co-production causes tensions between the dynamic and diffuse nature of co-production and existing formal governance settings and processes. Lessons for strengthening the capacities to embed co-production as a collaborative governance practice in nature-based solutions planning, delivery and stewardship are: (1) embedding a tailor-made approach for inclusive co-production to meaningfully engage diverse actors in place-based settings, (2) embedding open-ended co-production with long-term benefits, and (3) embedding new relations and roles to sustain co-production. • Co-production requires investing in new governance capacities. • Diverse co-production processes underpin collaborative NBS governance. • No one-size-fits-all: tailor co-production to contexts, goals, target audiences. • Monitor and evaluate co-production to reveal benefits. • Invest in long-term relations and engagement to sustain co-production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an emerging consensus that the health of the planet depends on the coexistence between rapidly growing cities and the natural world. One strategy for guiding cities towards sustainability is to facilitate a planning process based on positive visions for urban systems among actors and stakeholders. This paper presents the Urban Nature Futures Framework (UNFF), a framework for scenario building for cities that is based on three Nature Futures perspectives: Nature for Nature , Nature for Society , and Nature as Culture. Our framework engages stakeholders with envisioning the three Nature Futures perspectives through four components using participatory methods and quantitative models: identification of the socio-ecological feedbacks in cities, assessment of indirect impacts of cities on biodiversity, development of multi-scale indicators, and development of scenarios. Stakeholders in cities may use this framework to explore different options for integrating nature in its various manifestations within urban areas and to assess how different community preferences result in various cityscapes and distribution of associated benefits from nature among urban dwellers across multiple scales. • The Urban Nature Futures Framework (UNFF) explores transformative future scenarios that are positive for nature and people. • Nature for Nature promotes rewilding in city parks and in areas around cities. • Nature for Society promotes a range of nature-based solutions in cities that benefit society. • Nature as Culture promotes a cultural experience of nature in cities. • This framework can be used to develop alternative visions and scenarios for the management of nature in cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Cities and their residents are impacted by the growing effects of climate change in various ways. Urban areas, infrastructure, and green places are all destroyed by extreme weather events. The goal of measures made to strengthen cities' resilience and adaptation to climate change is to lessen or eliminate negative effects or to boost the advantages of hazards. They vary in personality and shape according on the degree of economic and social development as well as the availability of financial, institutional, human, and intellectual resources. The methods and equipment utilised in planning and urban development are very crucial. The study focuses on structuring urban space, highlighting the value of environmental services, and strengthening resilience to climate change via planning and implementation initiatives. The study is concentrated on Polish cities that have developed Urban Adaptation Plans (MPA). The purpose of this paper is to outline the blue-green infrastructure projects covered by the MPA, discuss the opportunities for their implementation, and demonstrate how they contribute to urban spaces' increased appeal, better quality of life, and increased local community awareness and participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Governance Review / Revue Gouvernance is the property of University of Ottawa, Center on Governance and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Resilience has become a policy and practical framework for addressing a range of threats from natural disasters and extreme weather events to political conflicts and terrorism. Focusing on the context of cities, this paper offers a conceptualisation of urban resilience, critically interrogating its use for urban governance and the political implications it has for individual agency. The paper also seeks to contribute to the existing critical literature on urban resilience. The second part of the paper focuses on the Rockefeller Foundation's 100 Resilient Cities programme as implemented in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago, Chile. Empirical data obtained through fieldwork and interviews with representatives of the public sector and civil society suggest that while creating an illusion of inclusiveness and empowerment, the 'resilience approach' has largely ignored the structural conditions of extreme social and spatial inequality in Santiago. Local political realities and private sector interests play an important part in this equation. The case study points to a general tendency to treat city resilience as a technical question, thereby downplaying its deeply political nature. It highlights the disconnection between the topography of risk on the one side and technological interventions on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Africa is one of the most vulnerable regions in respect of climate change. As the African continent struggles to adapt to climate change, a variety of measures are being pursued to alleviate the resultant pressures on people, properties and their livelihoods in several African cities. Collectively, they show that climate change adaptation in Africa is not as hopeless as widely claimed, and that there are some promising prospects. The literature shows a deficiency on studies which examine the extent to which climate change adaptation is being pursued in African cities. This paper addresses this need, and outlines some of the most important climate threats (e.g. increasing temperatures, droughts, sea level rise, sea and river flooding) and synergic non-climate factors, as well as recent progress made in respect of implementing climate change adaptation in African cities. Rather than adopt a general description of trends, this research focuses on concrete case studies from six major cities across the central, western, and eastern regions of the African continent (Douala, Lagos City, Dar-es-Salaam, Accra, Addis Ababa and Mombasa). The vulnerability and adaptive capacity status of the studied cities are discussed. Difficulties and challenges encountered in implementing adaptation policies in these areas are also highlighted. Furthermore, some successful examples of climate change adaptation initiatives in the surveyed cities are provided. Finally, the paper outlines some of the policy measures which can be implemented towards strengthening the capacity of African cities to adapt to a changing climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partnerships emerge as part of an environmental governance paradigm shift towards less hierarchical, more collaborative, and non-regulative steering arrangements. This paper examines the prevalence of partnerships in environmental governance on an urban level in a semi-authoritarian setting, by exploring climate initiatives in cities in China. The paper presents exploratory qualitative analysis of governance in urban China through analysis of a database of 150 climate initiatives in 15 cities, which are seen at the forefront of climate protection. The analysis suggests that climate partnerships are used as a governance strategy in China. Moreover, partnerships perform a range of essential governance functions, from rule-setting and provision of public infrastructure and services, to supporting technology development and low carbon demonstration projects. The results indicate that partnerships can facilitate local climate action by creating access to resources, such as information, technology, and funding, as well as contribute to introduction of emission reduction technology and new policy approaches. However, the inclusion of non-state actors in the formulation and delivery of climate mitigation projects redefines the lines of authority over public issues. This draws attention to two key governance challenges in the context of a comparatively state-controlled, top-down political system: skewed participation and lack of deliberative opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young people's engagement with urban public space has been facing a number of obstacles that reflect a lack of understanding of their needs, values and priorities. The emergence of digital devices and social media as integral elements of youth culture adds further urgency to the need to understand how young people themselves visually articulate their perceptions of life in the city. Bringing together elements from urban studies, youth studies and digital media literacy, this paper puts forward a pedagogic and research approach that aims to facilitate youth engagement with urban landscapes and the community. Participatory photography was used a tool for capturing youth urban voice with British undergraduate students. A methodological framework for the coding and analysis of participants' images and reflective pieces was conducted with a pilot study involving 51 students. By employing a participatory/reflective photography methodology analyzing youth engagement with the urban landscape, the exercise produced highly engaged and emotive visual and textual narratives. Student work focused around issues of unemployment, dereliction and conglomeration. Findings reveal that participants focused more on the social and economic properties of place than on its aesthetic and architectural ones. They viewed their local spaces through media filters and a prism of disempowered and individualized consumption. The paper ultimately highlights a paradox: while young people are at the forefront of unprecedented global digital connectivity, at the same time their narratives emit a sense of civic loneliness. Global change and urbanization are perceived as destructive forces that have an adverse effect on their way of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we use estimates of the effectiveness of existing road safety technologies and interventions to estimate the reduction in road safety deaths in six Indian cities over the next decade, in order to achieve the SDG 3.6 goal of a 50% reduction by 2030. Only the existing interventions are considered and technologies that might be available in the future are not accounted for. The results show that similar policies for all cities will not produce the same results, and that achieving the SDG 3.6 goal does not automatically reduce fatality rates in cities with high fatality rates. The introduction of safer cars with currently available safety technologies, although necessary, will have much less effect than the combined effect of motorcycle safety technologies, speed control and traffic calming. This study suggests that while SDG 3.6 targets may be satisfied by 2030 with great effort in India, the presently available safety interventions may not be adequate to bring about death rates below 2.0 per hundred thousand persons. Since the situation differs significantly between cities, it will be important to evolve city-specific policies for safety intervention priorities and changes in travel behavior. The desired reduction in road traffic injuries in India will not be possible without much greater investment in road safety research and road design for safer travel. • SDG 3.6 targets may be reached by 2030, but death rates will not decrease below 2.0 per hundred thousand in Indian cities. • Similar policies for all cities will not produce the same results. • Enforcement of motorcycle safety technologies and helmet use is essential for all cities. • The maximum benefit will be achieved by speed control, traffic calming measures, and facilities for vulnerable road users. • The desired reductions in road death rates in India will require a greater investment in road safety research and design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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• Robust impact evaluation frameworks for nature-based solutions that assess multifunctionality are virtually inexistent. • There are many conceptual problems and empirical gaps in evaluation schemes for nature-based solutions. • The pathways connecting nature-based solutions and outcomes should be systematically defined and assessed. • Trade-offs between outcomes and among social groups should be identified. • Long-term evaluation of outcomes should become more common. Cities all over the world are confronting intertwined environmental, social and economic problems and aim to become resilient to climate change and promote wellbeing for all their citizens. Nature-based solutions have been proposed as a promising policy approach to addressing urban problems for the potential they have to deliver multiple benefits and foster wellbeing for individuals and communities. However, the evidence for their multiple benefits is rather scarce and highly fragmented, and more robust frameworks for the monitoring and assessment of their impacts are needed to guide urban policy-making. This paper focuses on the current state of impact assessment of nature-based solutions in Europe and through a systematic review of the literature identifies four conceptual problems and three empirical gaps that impede the accumulation of solid evidence regarding of the impacts of different types of nature-based solutions for different social groups; as well as of the contextual conditions that contribute to their performance and delivery of multiple outcomes. Based on the identified mis-conceptualizations and gaps, we derive a series of principles that should guide the development of robust impact assessment frameworks for nature-based solutions. We discuss the policy implications of these gaps and principles. We conclude by making a series of recommendations that should inform the design of impact monitoring and evaluation frameworks in cities, in order to develop the comparative evidence base on the effectiveness of nature-based solutions. This, in turn, can inform urban decision-making on the appropriate design, implementation, and long-term regeneration of nature-based solutions, to ensure long-term delivery of important ecosystem services for different social groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• European cities are making explicit contributions to biodiversity through nature-based solutions, using quantitative targets. • The Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework should incorporate the goals of Conserve, Restore, and Thrive that cities pursue for biodiversity. • Urban NBS need to further integrate biodiversity goals, as well as restoration actions that emphasize species and genetic diversity. In this paper, we examine how cities are working with nature-based solutions for biodiversity. Drawing on a sample of 199 nature-based solutions across Europe, we identify how cities work with nature-based solutions to conserve nature, restore nature, and to find ways to thrive through harnessing nature's contribution to people. Our findings show that cities are making explicit contributions to biodiversity through nature-based solutions, and often adopt specific and quantifiable targets to guide their actions. Yet there is significant variation in the ways in which biodiversity goals and interventions are being pursued. Where biodiversity goals and actions are included in nature-based solutions, they are mainly ecosystem-based - focusing on the protection, restoration or enhancement of the integrity, functionality, and connectivity of habitats and ecosystems - with fewer focused on specific species, and very few projects concerned with genetic diversity. Although it is often assumed that urban action towards biodiversity goals will be undertaken through local planning processes, our analysis shows that European cities are taking project-based actions for biodiversity through a set of explicit, quantitative and measurable targets, which are tailored to the specific conditions of urban settings. On the basis of these findings, we suggest that if cities are to achieve ambitious goals for biodiversity over the next decade, new international frameworks being developed for the post-2020 period should include targets that acknowledge the way in which biodiversity is governed in cities and the contribution that cities make to conserve, restore and thrive with nature to guide urban action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• There is a distinction between usable and useful knowledge for climate change adaptation. • There are challenges to ensure boundary organisations have long-lasting impacts. • Two systemic changes are proposed to advance knowledge usefulness. Increased social and environmental vulnerability to extreme climatic events and inherent aggravation of environmental and social problems has placed climate change adaptation as an urgent challenge for decision-makers. Understanding and using climate change information to advance the implementation of climate-friendly policies further compounds this challenge. A rich scholarly literature focusing on climate change adaptation endorses that investing in mechanisms that narrow the gap between climate change information production and its use is crucial to increase adaptive capacity. Based on this assumption, this paper investigates the extent to which two collaborative projects that functioned as boundary organisations in Brazil (CiAdapta project) and Australia (Climate Change Adaptation for Natural Resource Management in East Coast Australia) increased access to information, and enabled the continual and continuous usefulness of produced knowledge for climate change adaptation. Considering the distinction between usable and useful information, we applied six criteria to guide the data analysis and extract key lessons from each project. Our findings confirm that face-to-face interactions are more likely to result in research having the societal impact that is being increasingly required by research and funding bodies. Our findings also indicate that two key systemic changes are critical for the long-term influence of boundary organisations for advancing climate change adaptation. These include changes to the science, knowledge production process; and shift in the political culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a model for developing an Age-Friendly Media and Information Literate (#AFMIL) city. It starts by addressing general issues concerning ageing and ageism. Key features of UNESCO's framework for a media and information literate city are described. The authors proceed to identify relevant international handbooks, guidelines and initiatives concerning agefriendly environments, cities for human rights, smart cities, creative cities and informational cities. Drawing on these documents, the authors outline a model for developing an #AFMIL city, centred on older people enacting three roles: their role as consumers of media and information; older people as represented in the media; and older people in their role as creators, critics and innovators. They highlight the role of librarians in this development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A new spatial typology of climate change risk for European cities and regions. • Response to IPCC call to understand climate change risks at sub-national levels. • Uneven climate change risk across the 33 countries covered by the typology. • Differences in risk profiles facing urban, rural and peri -urban areas. • Evidence of spatial clustering in climate change risk across typology classes. This paper aims to contribute to the analysis of climate change risk through the development of a new spatially-explicit typology of climate risk for European cities and regions. In doing so, it offers a direct response to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) call to advance awareness of climate change risks at sub-national levels through the integration of hazard, exposure and vulnerability domains into a composite risk classification that covers the whole of Europe. K-means clustering was applied to 49 variables at NUTS3 level where the final classification resulted in an upper-tier of eight 'classes', which were subsequently partitioned to derive a lower-tier of 31 'sub-classes'. A three-stage analysis of the eight-fold class configuration was then undertaken focusing on the distribution of climate risk classes, raising significant issues to inform climate change adaptation planning policy, practice and research. The analysis revealed an uneven distribution of climate change risk across the 33 countries covered by the typology, reinforcing the IPCC message that adapting and building resilience to climate change risk is not a 'one-size-fits-all' exercise. In the second stage, the analysis focused on determining whether there was a difference in the climate change risk facing different settlement types in Europe. The analysis revealed the extent of variation in the climate change risk characteristics of Europe's urban and rural areas, revealing the potential for peri -urban areas to fall between climate change risk agendas or priorities when compared to urban–rural contexts. The final component of our analysis considered the extent to which climate change risk classes exhibit patterns of spatial clustering. Here we found that climate change risk exhibits evidence of spatial clustering but the extent of the clustering varies between different classes as the relationship between contiguous NUTS3 regions changes. This finding has notable implications for transboundary adaptation planning where discontinuities in political buy-in, competition, resourcing and awareness of risk could serve to undermine the coherence and adequacy of policy responses at a time when greater cooperation and alignment is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Partnerships between cities can play an important role in cloudburst knowledge systems. • There is a need for improved projections of cloudburst intensity with climate change. • There is a need for social science research to improve cloudburst risk dimensioning. • Policymakers need support in decision-making under climate change associated uncertainties. Cities are particularly vulnerable to cloudbursts - short-duration, intense rainfall events – which are often inadequately addressed through conventional stormwater and flood management policy. Climate change is projected to increase the frequency and intensity of cloudbursts in many cities. As minor cloudburst events become more frequent and extreme events more severe, cities will need to rapidly transform their stormwater drainage and interdependent systems, and the knowledge systems that guide their infrastructure decisions and policy. In this paper, we discuss the evolution of knowledge systems to address these challenges, using three diverse cities (Phoenix, USA; Copenhagen, Denmark; and New York City, USA) as case studies. We found that partnerships between cities – even across national boundaries – can be a particularly important component of cloudburst knowledge systems. We also identified limitations in knowledge systems related to non-stationary climate, the vulnerability of private property and the representation of cloudburst infrastructure in integrated water management, which present opportunities for future research to support decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights Nature-based solutions are valid solutions for climate change adaptation and urban regeneration. Nature-based solutions require different co-creation settings to connect with urban social innovation. Nature-based solutions require a collaborative approach to their planning and implementation. Abstract Nature-based solutions are proliferating in European cities over the past years as viable solutions to urban challenges such as climate change, urban degeneration and aging infrastructures. With evidence amounting about nature-based solutions, there is a need to translate knowledge about nature-based solutions to future policy and planning. In this paper, we analysed fifteen cases of nature-based solutions' experiments across 11 European cities. What makes our case studies stand out is the balanced focus between ecosystem and social benefits in contrast to many published cases on nature-based solutions that have a weighted focus on the climate benefits. From a cross-case comparative analysis we draw seven overarching lessons related to all stages of proof-of-concept and implementation of nature-based solutions in cities: (a) nature-based solutions need to be aesthetically appealing to citizens, (b) nature-based solutions create new green urban commons, (c) experimenting with nature-based solutions requires trust in the local government and in experimentation process itself, (d) co-creation of nature-based solutions requires diversity and learning from social innovation, (e) nature-based solutions require collaborative governance, (f) an inclusive narrative of mission for nature-based solutions can enable integration to many urban agendas and (g) design nature-based solutions so as to learn and replicate them on the long-term. The lessons we draw show that nature-based solutions require multiple disciplines for their design, diversity (of settings) for co-creation and recognition of the place-based transformative potential of nature-based solutions as 'superior' to grey infrastructure. We further discern that urban planners need to have an open approach to collaborative governance of nature-based solutions that allows learning with and about new appealing designs, perceptions and images of nature from different urban actors, allows forming of new institutions for operating and maintaining nature-based solutions to ensure inclusivity, livability and resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Globalization forces cities and areas to compete with each other to attract talented and motivated inhabitants. In an attempt to differentiate in the competitive market, city officials are creating urban visions by collaborating with a variety of stakeholders. However, every stakeholder perceives the visions differently, and the implementation processes are slow. The capability to update the vision can decrease the uncertainty in the success of the overall implemented solution. Therefore, this paper strives to increase understanding of the processes behind areal vision creation and investigates the effects to the resulting area. The paper presents a single intrinsic case study and takes a qualitative approach by analyzing nine thematic interviews on Suurpelto case in Espoo, Finland. The interviewees represent different stakeholders of both vision building and implementation phases and of both private and public sector. The case represents a situation where economical recession radically changed the operational environment and an essential stakeholder backed up from the project during the operational process changing the dynamics and the implementation potential of the original vision. The results indicate that trust between all the stakeholders through out the vision and implementation phases is essential for succeeding in a project but also a means of gaining trust of the inhabitants. For the practitioners, this implies that more attention should be paid on trust building issues between the different stakeholders throughout the vision building process in order to create trustworthy environments for the potential inhabitants, businesses and other prospects. Potential future research could focus on analyzing the vision progress in a more detailed manner, especially from the perspective of inhabitants of the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increase in occurrences of high impact disasters, the concept of risk reduction and resilience is widely recognised. Recent disasters have highlighted the exposure of urban cities to natural disasters and emphasised the need of making cities resilient to disasters. Built environment plays an important role in every city and need to be functional and operational at a time of a disaster and is expected to provide protection to people and other facilities. However, recent disasters have highlighted the vulnerability of the built assets to natural disasters and therefore it is very much important to focus on creating a disaster resilient built environment within cities. However the process of making a disaster resilient built environment is a complex process where many challenges are involved. Accordingly the paper aims at exploring the challenges involved in building a disaster resilient built environment. Paper discusses the findings of some expert interviews and three case studies which have been conducted in Sri Lanka by selecting three cities which are potentially vulnerable to threats posed by natural hazards. The empirical evidence revealed, lack of regulatory frameworks; unplanned cities and urbanisation; old building stocks and at risk infrastructure; unauthorised structures; institutional arrangements; inadequate capacities of municipal councils; lack of funding; inadequacy of qualified human resources; and corruption and unlawful activities as major challenges for creating a disaster resilient built environment within Sri Lankan cities. The paper proposes a set of recommendations to address these prevailing concerns and to build a more resilient built environment within cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two central issues of climate change have become increasingly evident: Climate change will significantly affect cities; and rapid global urbanization will increase dramatically the number of individuals, amount of critical infrastructure, and means of economic production that are exposed and vulnerable to dynamic climate risks. Simultaneously, cities in many settings have begun to emerge as early adopters of climate change action strategies including greenhouse gas mitigation and adaptation. The objective of this paper is to examine and analyze how officials of one city – the City of New York – have integrated a flexible adaptation pathways approach into the municipality's climate action strategy. This approach has been connected with the City's ongoing response to Hurricane Sandy, which struck in the October 2012 and resulted in damages worth more than US$19 billion. A case study narrative methodology utilizing the Wise et al. conceptual framework (see this volume) is used to evaluate the effectiveness of the flexible adaptation pathways approach in New York City. The paper finds that Hurricane Sandy serves as a “tipping point” leading to transformative adaptation due to the explicit inclusion of increasing climate change risks in the rebuilding effort. The potential for transferability of the approach to cities varying in size and development stage is discussed, with elements useful across cities including the overall concept of flexible adaptation pathways, the inclusion of the full metropolitan region in the planning process, and the co-generation of climate-risk information by stakeholders and scientists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Cities predominantly focus on self-governing when it comes to adaptation. • Citizens are mainly governed by provision of information for adaptation. • Private sector is governed through partnerships for adaptation. • The more advanced a city is on adaptation planning, the more likely it will address other actors. Abstract Expectations of cooperation between local authorities, the private sector, and citizens in climate change adaptation in cities are high because involvement of many actors is seen as critical to success. Scholars and policymakers argue that the private sector could be more efficient than the public authorities in implementing adaptation measures and argue for the need to engage citizens to ensure legitimacy of adaptation and inclusion of locally relevant knowledge. To what extent do cities address the private sector and citizens in their adaptation initiatives? What modes of governance do they use to do this? What kinds of cities are the most likely to address the private sector and citizens? Going beyond the existing case study approaches, this paper answers these questions using a large N data set covering 402 cities around the world. We find that a majority of adaptation initiatives focus exclusively on the public sector and do not address the private sector or citizens. In the cases where they do, the private sector is more often governed through partnerships and participation, whereas citizen participation is relatively rare. Initiatives involving citizens rely more often on a provision of information that encourages citizens to adapt. We find that the more advanced a city is in its adaptation process, the more likely it is to address the private sector than citizens in its initiatives to adapt to climate change. Whereas with partnerships and participation the private sector can influence urban adaptation arrangements at a broader scale, the provision of information allows citizens only to implement individual adaptation measures according to their capacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Devolution in Kenya has had ramification on local governments especially urban areas. Kisumu City is unique as the only city with a rural county hinterland. It has created a challenge for the County Executive in terms of managing County expectations and City interests in terms of governance. This paper looks at Kisumu in terms of the governance structures, spatial planning and finance as key aspects of having an effective city management and governance. It points out the gaps that exist within the legal framework that operationalizes the devolved structures for the city. It allows for an appreciation of the management and governance structures of the city as it strives to put in place systems that would make devolution for the city to work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Abstract: Cities are key sites where climate change is being addressed. Previous research has largely overlooked the multiplicity of climate change responses emerging outside formal contexts of decision-making and led by actors other than municipal governments. Moreover, existing research has largely focused on case studies of climate change mitigation in developed economies. The objective of this paper is to uncover the heterogeneous mix of actors, settings, governance arrangements and technologies involved in the governance of climate change in cities in different parts of the world. The paper focuses on urban climate change governance as a process of experimentation. Climate change experiments are presented here as interventions to try out new ideas and methods in the context of future uncertainties. They serve to understand how interventions work in practice, in new contexts where they are thought of as innovative. To study experimentation, the paper presents evidence from the analysis of a database of 627 urban climate change experiments in a sample of 100 global cities. The analysis suggests that, since 2005, experimentation is a feature of urban responses to climate change across different world regions and multiple sectors. Although experimentation does not appear to be related to particular kinds of urban economic and social conditions, some of its core features are visible. For example, experimentation tends to focus on energy. Also, both social and technical forms of experimentation are visible, but technical experimentation is more common in urban infrastructure systems. While municipal governments have a critical role in climate change experimentation, they often act alongside other actors and in a variety of forms of partnership. These findings point at experimentation as a key tool to open up new political spaces for governing climate change in the city. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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Abstract: Buildings consume around 40% of the final energy in most countries but are also responsible for a large part of theenergy use in the industrial and transport sectors. Today, most policies and market trends focus solely on the spaceheating and cooling demands often neglecting to consider indirect energy requirements such as the embodied energyof buildings or the transport energy of their users. This paper assesses different building scenarios located in twourban contexts by integrating the operational energy demand as well as the embodied energy of the dwellings and thetransport energy consumption of the users. Results show that space heating represents at most 23% of the total lifecycle energy demand over 50 years and 47% if the rest of operational energies, i.e. domestic hot water and appliances,is considered. Transport consumes 34-51% of the total life cycle energy consumption while the embodied energy ofbuildings was found to be of the same order of magnitude as their operational energy. Current energy assessment ofbuildings therefore often only analyses a small fraction of the total life cycle energy use. We should widen its scopeto account for so-called indirect energy consumption. This paper shows that a more holistic approach to theassessment of the energy demand associated with buildings is necessary if significant improvements in their energyefficiency are to be achieved. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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Copyright of EURE is the property of Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015 by the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) marked a milestone in that many developing countries submitted their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs) could serve as one foundation to achieve their NDCs. Much of the literature on NAMAs has focused on discussions on the basic concept, and its variance from past initiatives. The lack of attention to the governance aspect is a sizable blind spot since cities will require new institutional arrangements as well as implementing capacities to realize projected reductions. This is particularly pronounced at the sub-national level where knowledge of NAMAs remains relatively limited. The paper indeed finds that the significant variation between India and Indonesia's low carbon development is indeed attributable to these governance arrangements. Low carbon actions in India's cities exhibit a higher degree of institutionalization because of a relatively longer history of delegating national government responsibilities to subnational governments. In the case of Indonesia, city efforts started more recently and are primarily standalone or small pilot projects with minimum coordination with the national or within the subnational government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the crucial role cities play in the emergence and formation of grassroots socio-technical niches for sustainability transitions. Drawing on research engaged with strategic niche management, grassroots innovations and urban social innovations, it conceptualizes the interdependencies between urban contexts and grassroots niche dynamics, and explores a critical case in point: Current policy efforts in the city of Seoul to create, diversify and network social innovations in urban neighborhoods. The case illustrates how innovative place-making activities in everyday-life urban environs draws on empowerment, proximity and institutional thickness to meet basic conditions for niche formation in terms of networking, shared expectations and social learning, while also raising new issues of inclusion, legitimacy and strategy. In conclusion, four issues are highlighted that appear to decisively impact on the formation of urban grassroots niche and related sustainability transition pathways: 1) Urban empowerment capacities, 2) Embedded holistic innovation, 3) Novel community-oriented governance modes, and 4) Urban niche/regime interactions. These issues thus require particular attention in future research and policy in order to guide the coevolution of cities and urban grassroots initiatives towards sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between urban governance and citizens has to be revisited as citizens and their peer-to-peer networks emerge as central actors in creating the city space. Renewable energy is a key driver, since it enables citizens to produce their own energy. This transition creates pressure for the rigid urban planning system to reinvent itself. No more can urban governance alone define, produce, and create a liveable eco-smart city. This paper claims that new perspectives are needed to help urban planners, city residents, and stakeholders anticipate and shape urban futures co-operatively. Futures images of peer-to-peer organised urban futures and their challenges to urban governance are provided, based on two futures research projects (ENCORE and Neo-Carbon Energy). Core themes influencing the liveability of an urban environment have been identified as 1) meaningful environment, 2) grassroots approaches, and 3) hybrid spaces. To conclude, a conceptual model of anticipatory hybrid governance is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the rolling-window bootstrap Granger causality test, this paper investigates the relationship between stock and housing markets from the perspective of China's first-, second- and third-tier cities. The result indicates that the relations between stock and housing prices change across time and city tiers. The causality mainly exists in bull market periods and financial crises. During a bull market, the effect of stock prices on housing prices is positive in cities of all tiers, and the strongest effect is found in first-tier cities; during a financial crisis, housing prices have a negative effect on stock prices, and the effect diminishes gradually from first-tier cities to third-tier cities. Therefore, economic policy makers could take these differences into account to improve policy efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Studia Histórica: Historia Moderna is the property of Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

As urban populations grow and climate exposure increases, more cities are introducing formal planning processes to adapt to climate change. This paper explains the process applied to eight cities in the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) for developing indicators for planning and monitoring local climate resilience. This process relied on transferring a common conceptual framework for climate resilience, together with a locally led iterative and collaborative process that engaged technical and planning authorities and vulnerable groups. The process varied slightly between cities and generated indicators that were chosen for their contextual fit and availability of data. The main benefit of developing resilience indicators in this way was the local capacity that the process built, in terms of understanding resilience, shared understanding of concepts and measurement and establishment of a common platform for future planning and monitoring of climate adaptation interventions at the city level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]