Marta Olazabal

BC3-Basque Centre for Climate Change | BCCC

Cities can be understood as complex-adaptive systems that have the opportunity to manage their resilience towards sustainability through processes of transformation. The concept of ‘urban resilience’ has been applied in many different disciplines (climate change, disaster risk reduction, planning, economy, sociology and psychology) which enrich the...

Transformative change for urban sustainability and resilience calls for the use of new governance approaches that take into account the complexity of urban systems and associated stakeholder knowledge and perceptions. This raises the need to explore the cognitive dimension in the management of urban resilience and transformation. The article presen...

Cities are recognised as key players in global adaptation and mitigation efforts because the majority of people live in cities. However, in Europe, which is highly urbanized and one of the most advanced regions in terms of environmental policies, there is considerable diversity in the regional distribution, ambition and scope of climate change resp...

This paper addresses the importance of the cognitive dimension in urban sustainability transition policy practice. Many and diverse actors with contrasting interests interact in urban sustainability transitions. Their perceptions and values impact the potential uptake of transition strategies in urban systems. It is thus important to understand how...

Defining and measuring progress in adaptation are important questions for climate adaptation science, policy, and practice. Here, we assess the progress of urban adaptation planning in 327 European cities between 2005 and 2020 using three ‘ADAptation plan Quality Assessment’ indices, called ADAQA-1/ 2/ 3, that combine six plan quality principles. H...

Many cities around the world are experimenting with nature-based solutions (NbS) to address the interconnected climate-, biodiversity- and society-related challenges they are facing (referred to as the climate–biodiversity–society, or CBS, nexus), by restoring, protecting and more sustainably managing urban ecosystems. Although the application of u...

Recent systematic reviews show that, overall, and across governance levels and sectors, climate change adaptation monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems are rarely programmed and implemented. As a result, there is a generalized lack of knowledge and practice regarding the definition and use of adaptation indicators and metrics from which to effect...

Climate change impacts such as extreme events and progressive global warming are threatening the conservation and livability of urban cultural heritage. Understanding climate risks on heritage should be part of policy and planning decision-making processes to increase resilience and sustainability of both social and built environmental systems. How...

Climate change is disproportionately affecting vulnerable communities, increasing existing risks and leading to further global inequalities. Drawing on the concept of urban adaptation justice, we evaluated the inclusion of vulnerable communities in the climate change adaptation planning process of İstanbul, a European coastal megacity with consider...

Comparative studies of urban adaptation have evaluated the progress, means and scope of adaptation planning. Practice on the ground shows that the local politics of climate adaptation advance through various strategies to align different interests and spheres of action or disrupt mainstream practices, which translates into a wide range of intervent...

A systematic and critical review of the existing literature on climate-change risk-assessment methodologies for historic urban areas is presented, in view of the increasing likelihood of extreme weather events. Key performance indicators are identified for use in future risk assessment methodologies that address both the elements of historic urban...

Climate change is likely to increase droughts. The vulnerability of cities to droughts is increasing worldwide. Policy responses from cities to droughts lack consideration of long-term climatic and socio-economic scenarios, and focus on short-term emergency actions that disregard sustainability in the connected regional and river basin systems. We...

In Europe, regions in the Mediterranean area share common characteristics in terms of high sensitivity to climate change impacts. Does this translate into specificities regarding climate action that could arise from these Mediterranean characteristics? This paper sheds light on regional and local climate mitigation actions of the Mediterranean Euro...

Evidence shows that current adaptation planning approaches are not always successful in generating actionable knowledge to guide implementation on the ground. There remains a persistent disconnect between the production of (physical) climate science and the implementation of practical, local, and context-specific adaptation actions. We argue for a...

En este informe promovido por el Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica y el Reto Demográfico (MITECO), con la coordinación técnica del Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), se exponen los principales impactos del cambio climático en los distintos sectores productivos y sistemas naturales de España, se elabora una relación de los principales rie...

The assessment of public adaptation policies, strategies and plans to evaluate progress, effectiveness and long-term sustainability is challenging. The potential to develop an ex-post evaluation linked to outcomes is limited given the lack of policy implementation globally and the uncertainty related to when and how impacts will happen. Ex-ante eva...

Cities across the globe recognise their role in climate mitigation and are acting to reduce carbon emissions. Knowing whether cities set ambitious climate and energy targets is critical for determining their contribution towards the global 1.5 °C target, partly because it helps to identify areas where further action is necessary. This paper present...

This chapter offers a critical reflection on the results of a global urban adaptation tracking study on 136 coastal cities around the world that builds a reference baseline of what is happening on the ground. It discusses adaptation planning progress in this set of the world’s largest coastal cities in relation to the emergence of a new climate urb...

Many cities around the world are undertaking adaptation planning processes in contexts of considerable uncertainty due to climate risks. However, new evidence suggests that current adaptation policies are failing to fully incorporate risk-related information and knowledge. Understanding how policies account for current and future risks becomes cruc...

Tras el Acuerdo de París y la incorporación de los compromisos nacionales en adaptación, la medición del progreso en cuestiones de adaptación forma una importante parte de la agenda internacional en política climática. Monitorizar los avances en materia de adaptación puede aportar información relevante para las instituciones públicas y privadas que...

Cities play an important role in identifying climate impacts on population, urbanization and infrastructure, and in making decisions regarding how, how much and when we should adapt. We present here an analysis of the climatic impacts identified in 11 local climate change adaptation plans which are currently in force in the largest Spanish cities....

The Paris Agreement requires measurement of the progress made on adaptation. Tracking the progress made by governments through analysis of policies provides insight into the goals and means to achieve adaptation targets. Here we show the current state of the art in public adaptation planning affecting 136 of the largest coastal port urban agglomera...

Este resumen de política presenta un análisis de la planificación en materia de adaptación de 11 capitales de provincia españolas. La mayoría de los planes existentes han sido aprobados en los últimos dos años y, aunque la adaptación es incipiente, empieza a ser una prioridad para las ciudades. Las fortalezas identificadas en el análisis de los pla...

Cities are gaining prominence committing to respond to the threat of climate change, e.g., by developing local climate plans or strategies. However, little is known regarding the approaches and processes of plan development and implementation, or the success and effectiveness of proposed measures. Mainstreaming is regarded as one approach associate...

After the Paris Agreement that put stronger emphasis on the development of climate change adaptation policies and on the definition of financing mechanisms, there is a patent need to track whether actual planning efforts are proving sufficient. This entails the development of assessment methods and metrics as plans are drafted and actions implement...

The Paris Agreement aims to limit global mean temperature rise this century to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. This target has wide-ranging implications for Europe and its cities, which are the source of substantial greenhouse gas emissions. This paper reports the state of local planning for climate change by collecting and analysing i...

By aggregating semi‐quantitative mind maps from multiple agents, fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) allows developing an integrated, cross‐sectoral understanding of complex systems. However, and especially for FCM based on individual interviews, the map‐building process presents potential pitfalls. These are mainly related to the different understanding...

Key findings: (1) Financial policies must enable local governments to initiate actions that will minimize the costs of climate impacts. For example, the cost of inaction will be very high for cities located along coastlines and inland waterways due to rising sea levels and increasing risks of flooding. (2) Climate-related policies should also provi...

Decision-making for climate change adaptation requires an integrated and cross-sectoral approach to adequately capture the complexity of interconnected systems. More meaningful decisions can be taken in an arena where different agents provide knowledge of specific domains. This paper uses a semi-quantitative method based on cognitive mapping to dem...

The need to look at environmental-related problems from a systemic perspective has been increasingly highlighted in current scientific literature. Especially in a context of climate change uncertainty, it is helpful to identify interdependencies and cascading impacts that might happen under certain management or policy scenarios. In the context of...

This chapter aims to provide up-to-date quantitative estimates of the costs and benefits related to adaptation strategies for different sectors in Europe. This is done by critically evaluating modeling frameworks and contexts applied to adaptation and by describing new developments achieved in sectoral assessment models (water, agriculture, ecosyst...

The case study research developed over the past 4 years (2012-2016) has provided a significant contribution to our knowledge regarding climate change adaptation at the local level in Europe, and across the world. By case study we refer to empirical analysis of climate change adaptation in real life contexts (Yin, 1994). Europe is equally a supra ca...

Resilience is a multi-faceted concept frequently used across a wide range of disciplines, practices, and sectors. There is a growing recognition of the utility of resilience as a bridging concept that can facilitate inter-and transdisciplinary approaches to tackle complexities inherent in decision making under conditions of risk and uncertainty. Su...

The earliest climate change adaptation plans emerged about ten years ago and are an increasingly important component of the international policy agenda. Because these plans by nature involve long-term objectives, some of the main questions raised in current adaptation tracking research studies are whether and how they will be implemented and what i...

This book is inspired by the positive feedback received by the Adaptation Inspiration Book developed in CIRCLE-2, coordinated by the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon. This inspiration book is a culmination of four years extensive case study research carried out within the EU FP7 Project BASE: Bottom-up climate adaptation strategies towards...

Globally, efforts are underway to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to climate change impacts at the local level. However, there is a poor understanding of the relationship between city strategies on climate change mitigation and adaptation and the relevant policies at national and European level. This paper describes a com...

Cities are where most of the overall primary energy is consumed, GHG emissions are released [1] and where people are more and more frequently affected by the adverse effects of climate change [2]. On the other hand, cities are the ideal framework for implementing low-carbon policies [3] and adaptation strategies through a strategic planning process...

Cities significantly contribute to climate change while at the same time have government capacity to efficiently act in the fields of mitigation and adaptation. Their climate capacity is being increasingly recognized by international institutions and has been pointed out as crucial in the multi-level government scenario of the European Union (EU)....

The urgent need to transform our patterns of urban development has been expressed not only by the scientific community but also in the policy arena. Current concerns relate to increasing urbanisation and global environmental trends in regard to resource scarcity, climate change and degrading environmental quality. Urban complexity, cross-scale impa...

OPEN ACCESS PAPER: http://eau.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/01/09/0956247814550780 The concept of urban resilience has so far been related mainly to climate change adaptation and disaster management perspectives. Here we aim to broaden the discussion by showing how the framework of urban resilience should be related to wider sustainability challe...

Urban areas are pivotal to global adaptation and mitigation efforts. But how do cities actually perform in terms of climate change response? This study sheds light on the state of urban climate change adaptation and mitigation planning across Europe. Europe is an excellent test case given its advanced environmental policies and high urbanization. W...

Aspectos clave  En las ciudades, los procesos de transformación hacia la sostenibilidad no son un mero problema de desarrollo tecnológico, sino también de política, relaciones de poder, economía, cultura y de los sistemas de valores sociales.  Los procesos participativos que incluyan el conocimiento y la experiencia de los distintos agentes y...

AVAILABLE AT: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/248999 The urgent need to transform our patterns of urban development has been expressed not only by the scientific community but also in the policy arena. Current concerns relate to increasing urbanisation and global environmental trends in regard to resource scarcity, climate change and...

Cities are widely recognised as being pivotal to fight climate change. They magnify the drivers of climate change, experience the impacts and also concentrate the highest room for action. Although urban areas are broadly claimed to be climate leaders, there is no archetype of right actions given the highly contextual differences among them. Yet, th...

Cities are widely recognised as being pivotal to fight climate change. Cities magnify the drivers of climate change, experience the impacts and also concentrate the highest room for action. Given the 70% of the global emissions that cities are responsible for, national governments are unable to meet their international commitments for addressing mi...

Highlights� � After accessing and contacting local authorities we reviewed approved and/or published urban climate change mitigation and adaptation plans from 200 cities in 11 European countries, and statistically analysed the plans’ regional distribution across countries and cities’ commitment in international climate networks. � Climate change re...

-Explores causes and consequences of the influence of multi-level climate governance, i.e. interaction and integration of climate action developed by the different tiers of government (national, regional and local) in two EU countries: Italy and Spain. -Conclusions are drawn based on detailed compilation, review and analyses of climate change polic...

Borrowing the insights of adaptive governance and transformations in socio-ecological systems, and also those in socio-technical transitions theory, this paper highlights the importance of managing equally adaptability and transformability in cities in a way that opportunities towards more resilient and sustainable development are not vanished.

Cities are widely defined as complex systems formed by coupled social, ecological and economical systems. The complexity of urban dynamics goes far beyond its boundaries due to the strong influence of larger scales and the deep dependence of cities on outside resources. Such crucial cross-scale effects can fuel maladaptive behaviour, conducting cit...

Urbanization is a central driver of global environmental change, and so it is essential that urban policies and planning align to address both regional and global environmental problems. We argue that the global sustainability challenge relies in a large part on cities, and that this requires an urgent change in urban practices. In this regard, the...

Significant steps have been made towards reaching the goal of sustainable development in urban areas in the last two decades, especially in industrialised countries. However, there is still a long way to go in cities to correct key problems regarding socio-economic inequalities, environmental degradation and overconsumption. Cities are facing old a...

According to the International Panel on Climate Change, while majority of the efforts to combat climate change have been centred on mitigation, climate change adaptation is becoming crucial for effective and efficient climate change strategies. This is demonstrated by the growing importance of concepts like vulnerability, adaptive capacity and resi...

Major efforts in the struggle against climate change have been made in the Basque Country. These include instruments such as the Basque Climate Change Office, the Basque Plan to Combat Climate Change, and the many initiatives carried out under the framework of Udalsarea 21 – Basque Network of Municipalities for Sustainability (made up of 199 munici...

Traditional top-down and technocratic approaches seem to be insufficient to tackle the many conflicts related to the sustainable use of natural resources. At the same time, reductionist and mono-disciplinary approaches lack the capacity to capture the complex interactions within evolving socio-ecological systems. Coastal zone management is an area...

An integrated methodology has been designed to assist sustainable decision-making processes managed by spatial planners and developers in public authorities and the private sector. It emphasises public participation at early stages of spatial planning for the integration of sustainability criteria. It also acts as an integrated decision-support sys...

The unplanned and non-environmentally integrated growth of cities in the last decades implies problems and challenges related to enviromnental impacts, life quality, social cohesion and economic capacities and competences. Considering this situation, an integrated management regarding the aforesaid aspects is demanded in urban areas. This requireme...

El desarrollo de una base de conocimiento común y sólida que permita la máxima objetividad y transparencia en la evaluación de la sostenibilidad dentro del proceso de toma de decisiones, constituye uno de los pilares básicos para su implementación en el planeamiento estratégico y la gestión del territorio. La caracterización del sistema ecológico-a...

This paper presents OIKOS, an Integrated System to support spatial planners and developers in the decision making process towards sustainability with significant emphasis on public participation as a key element to reach a full and comprehensive integration of sustainability criteria in the formulation of plans and programmes at the very early stag...