Developing a Municipal Adaptation Plan (MAP) for climate change: the city of Cape Town

Abstract

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.