Natural Hazards

, Volume 58, Issue 1, pp 85–101 | Cite as

Climate change and the resilient society: utopia or realistic option for German regions?

Original Paper
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Abstract

For the last five years, climate change has been increasingly perceived as a challenge for regional development. Compared to other nations, Germany is relatively ‘safe’, but the German regions are prone to different impacts of climate change; some of them might be positive but most will be negative in the long run. Strategic concepts are therefore needed to reduce the negative impacts and use the potential positive effects. Due to enforced research funding, several German regions are currently developing adaptation strategies within transdisciplinary research projects. Based on a comparative case study analysis of three of these projects, this paper looks for the benefits of resilience thinking in the context of climate change adaptation. The analysis shows that the case study regions try to increase their resilience to climate change by strengthening the properties of (1) resistance, (2) recovery and (3) creativity. But the discussion also reveals that only parts, certain sectors or subjects, of the region can increase their distinct resilience. Regional stakeholder networks as established within the case study regions can make a significant contribution to linking different sectors and levels of action. Therefore, this approach seems to be applicable for integrating the need for adaptation within the whole region. It is believed that the regionalized communication of potential climate change impacts raises awareness for climate change adaptation, helps to develop appropriate adaptation measures and encourages action. Hence, different approaches can indeed lead to more resilient structures. But the resilient society at regional level remains utopia.

Keywords

Resilience Climate change Regional adaptation strategies Regional development Bottom-up approach Participation Stakeholder networks 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

This paper is based on a presentation at the session ‘Can resilience be planned?’, hold by the German Geographical Society`s working group ‘Natural Hazards and Natural Risks’, March 2009, Leipzig. I thank G. Hutter (Leibniz Institute of Ecological and Regional Development, Dresden) and Christian Kuhlicke (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig) for organizing this event and for asking me to take part. I also thank Jochen Monstadt (Chair for Spatial and Infrastructure Planning, Technische Universität Darmstadt) and Frank Buchholz (KLARA-Net Team, Technische Universität Darmstadt) as well as two anonymous referees for detailed and helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.INFRASTRUKTUR & UMWELT, Professor Böhm und PartnerDarmstadtGermany

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