Search results

Adaptation is only going to get more challenging as changes in the climate intensify, combining with the effects of rapid urbanization and the persistently high levels of poverty and inequality in Africa.

Adaptation is only going to get more challenging as changes in the climate intensify, combining with the effects of rapid urbanization and the persistently high levels of poverty and inequality in Africa.

Rising rates of urbanization accompanied by increasing consumption puts the spotlight on how cities can mitigate and adapt to climate change (Wilbankset al. 2007; Sattherthwaiteet al. 2007). Globally, cities are starting to develop policies and plans to adapt to the impacts of climate change (Birkmann et al, 2010; Corburn, 2009; Horton et al. 2010). This is in part driven by the international scientific community that is encouraging adaptation as an important and urgent way to complement on-going mitigation efforts, that have formerly tended to dominate policies and finance (Romero-Lankao 2008). However, in some cases these emerging responses reflect a bottom-up awareness of the need to better plan for climate variability in order to increase the resilience of cities and protect its inhabitants. Many cities in the global South have been slower to develop adaptation responses than some cities in the global North. However, two cities in South Africa, eThekwini and the City of Cape Town, have been leaders in establishing adaptation policies and plans (Roberts 2008, Cartwright et al. 2008, Sattherthwaite 2007, Mukheibir and Ziervogel 2007). Exploring how these have been successful and what the challenges have been is important in developing lessons for other global South cities, where there are large numbers of people exposed to climate hazards. Because climate impacts are one of numerous other challenges, it is necessary to carefully position adaptation within a complex political and institutional landscape. This paper focuses on the five major coastal cities in South Africa, namely the City of Cape Town, Nelson Mandela Bay, Buffalo City, eThekwini and Richards Bay. The analysis is based on interviews in each of these metros undertaken in early 2010 with 17 government actors all involved in adaptation in their different capacities.

Climate change increases the likelihood of extreme weather events such as droughts, floods and heat waves, as well as more gradual changes in temperature and precipitation. The city of Cape Town (South Africa) is at risk from projected climate-induced warming and changes in rainfall variability. This makes resource management and infrastructure planning more challenging and increases the urgency of the need to adapt city-level operations to both current climate variability and future climate change. To date, however, the main focus of adaptation planning has been at the national level, and has not adequately addressed municipal-scale adaptation. This paper presents and discusses an overarching framework that would facilitate the development of a Municipal Adaptation Plan (MAP). The example of the city of Cape Town illustrates some of the sector-level assessments and potential climate threats, as well as resource mobilization issues that need to be addressed during the development and implementation of a MAP. In conclusion, a number of barriers to developing a MAP are discussed.

In light of the increasing call for climate action, there is a growing body of literature studying the ways in which informal settlements in the Global South are adapting to the impacts of climate change. In these particularly vulnerable communities where the existing infrastructural vulnerabilities faced by residents are exacerbated by the hazards of climate change, multi-level approaches involving more inclusive forms of governance are needed for the implementation of climate action. Drawing from the case of a sanitation upgrading project in the informal settlement of Murray, located in Philippi, Cape Town, this paper adds to current understandings of multi-level rapid climate action in informal settlements by endeavouring to address two gaps in this body of literature. Firstly, this paper demonstrates a link between climate change and sanitation which has received little attention by showing that improving sanitation infrastructure makes communities more resilient to extreme weather events associated with climate change. Secondly, the paper addresses how and by whom rapid climate action can be implemented in complex socio-institutional contexts such as informal settlements where the impacts of climate change are felt particularly strongly. This paper identifies what enabled and constrained climate action in the Murray informal settlement in an attempt to provide lessons for local government from the case of the sanitation upgrading project. Bottom-up initiation of multi-level climate action is dependent on fragile partnerships which require the support and involvement of a skilled and dedicated local government. Nevertheless, co-operative and transparent engagements across levels hold the potential to contribute to transformative adaptation through the establishment of new partnerships and forms of governance which recognise community groups as legitimate stakeholders and acknowledge the importance of lived experiences and mentalities.

There is overwhelming evidence that the climate is changing. It is the poorest countries and people who are the most vulnerable to this threat and who will suffer the most. This book shows how increasing urbanization and growing poverty levels mean that it is imperative to ask how climate change might impact on asset accumulation and food security for the urban poor. It demonstrates how these three, often separate foci, can be brought together to frame a holistic urban adaptation approach. Furthermore, although much has been written about climate change, limited evidence exists in southern Africa of how climate change has been integrated in urban planning. The authors explore the urban climate change nexus linking asset adaptation, climate change science and food security through several case study cities. These include Cape Town, George and Khara Hais (South Africa), Lusaka (Zambia), Maputo (Mozambique), Mombasa (Kenya) and Harare (Zimbabwe). The results shed light on how this nexus might be explored from different perspectives, both theoretical and practical, in order to plan for a more resilient future. Climate Change, Assets and Food Security in Southern African Cities comprises ten chapters which focus on southern African cities, with each chapter written by highly experienced academics, research-focused practitioners and professional planners. Although the book concentrates on southern African cities, the insights which are presented can be used to understand other urban centres in low and middle-income countries outside of this region and around the world

There is a long history of fire management in African savannas, but knowledge of historical and current use of fire is scarce in savanna-woodland biomes. This study explores past and present fire management practices and perceptions of the Khwe (former hunter-gatherers) and Mbukushu (agropastoralists) communities as well as government and non-government stakeholders in Bwabwata National Park in north-east Namibia. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were used in combination with satellite data (from 2000 to 2015), to investigate historical and current fire management dynamics. Results show that political dynamics in the region disrupted traditional fire practices, specifically a policy of fire suppression was initiated by colonial governments in 1888 and maintained during independence until 2005. Both the Khwe and Mbukushu communities use early season (i.e. between April and July) fires for diverse interrelated historical and current livelihood activities, and park management for managing late season fires. The Mbukushu community also use late season burns to prepare land for crops. In this study, we use a pyrogeographic framework to understand the human dimension of fires. This study reveals how today's fire management practices and policies, specifically the resurgence of early season burning are entrenched in the past. Understanding and acknowledging the social and cultural dynamics of fire, alongside participatory stakeholder engagement is critical for managing fires in the future. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s13280-020-01351-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Resilience thinking has been roundly critiqued for not accounting for the political – and inherently power-laden – structures that shape decision-making. In light of the range of critiques as well as the increasing global momentum around resilience thinking, this paper develops the concept of 'Negotiated Resilience.' The concept highlights processes of negotiation to situate, ground, and operationalize 'resilience.' The concept puts particular accent on the procedural orientation of resilience – it is not something that 'exists' and that we can uniformly define, rather it is a process that requires engagement with diverse actors and interests, both in specific places and across scales. Negotiation also inevitably entails contestation and an ongoing consideration of diverse options and trade-offs. We suggest that when considering the inherent complexities of resilience, we would do better to explicitly theorize, analyze, and speak to these negotiations. ; Science, Faculty of ; Non UBC ; Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute for ; Reviewed ; Faculty