Urban Climate Change Adaptation Framework for Chennai City, India

Abstract

Climate change has emerged as one of the serious threats of the twenty-first century and will exacerbate in the densely populated urban areas. Cities in the low-lying coastal zones are at high risk of increasing temperature, extreme weather events, coastal flooding, rising sea levels, etc. Adaptation is considered as one of the potential response strategies to changing climate. Urban climate change adaptation offers promising opportunities to cities such as building capacities at the local level. Building capacity for adaptation in urban areas is one of the major challenges yet an essential requirement to address climate change. In this context, the main aim of this study is to outline a conceptual framework in the context of urban climate change adaptation with Chennai city as a case study. This study has been made based on a combination of qualitative methodology in which primary and secondary sources are tapped for information and secondary literature are collected based on keyword search technique followed by a research synthesis approach. The key results of this study are as follows: (i) Climate change adaptation “science-society-policy” nexus played a key role in outlining a conceptual framework of urban climate change adaptation for Chennai city; and (ii) the study identified three major actors at the local city level which are classified broadly as “knowledge, governance, and actions,” based on secondary literatures. It also listed out their/its key roles and responsibilities to building capacities for planning urban climate change adaptation for Chennai city. Thus, the study’s conceptual framework centers on capacity building as it relates to urban climate change adaptation and cities. Its findings are anticipated to throw some insights on prospective urban climate change adaptation science and policies.