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"Climate change adaptation", "building resilience" and "vulnerability and risk reduction" are noble words, but do we really know what is meant by these terms and how to assess their respective progress? This book seeks to address these questions. The world has recently experienced disasters of a magnitude rarely seen before: the cascading disaster in Japan, the earthquake in Haiti, and floods in Pakistan and Australia are a few prominent examples. These major disasters underline the fact that many communities and world regions are still vulnerable to extreme events and natural hazards. Additionally, creeping changes, such as sea level rise, are emerging pressures in the context of climate change. These changes are very likely to seriously affect livelihoods in many regions. The dynamic and complex interaction between vulnerable communities, and climate- and non-climate-related, sudden-onset and creeping hazards will most likely increase the risk of crises and disasters in the future. Following the popularity of the first edition, this volume has been completely revised and fully updated. This new edition includes the dimension of adaptation to climate change and new risks resulting from climate change. It combines practical examples from Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe with theoretical and conceptual frameworks. It is key reading for all those interested in improving risk reduction and adaptation strategies to extreme events and gradual changes in the context of climate change and natural hazards.

Nachhaltige Raumentwicklung ist als Handlungsmaxime für die Träger der Landes- und Regionalplanung rechtsverbindlich im Raumordnungsgesetz fixiert (§ 1 Abs. 2 ROG). Soll Nachhaltigkeit nicht ein bloßer Modebegriff bleiben, müssen neben der Anpassung der Landesplanungsgesetze auch die Pläne, Programme und Projekte auf eine nachhaltige Raumentwicklung ausgerichtet werden. Indikatorengestütztes Monitoring und Controlling für eine nachhaltige Raumentwicklung wird in diesem Kontext als ein wichtiges Instrument angesehen. Allerdings sind bisher zahlreiche aktuelle Indikatorenansätze auf eine deskriptive Berichtsfunktion ausgerichtet und beschränken sich vielfach auf die Benennung wünschenswerter Indikatoren, ohne zu prüfen, ob die Messgrößen regional darstellbar sind und wie sie in Planungsprozessen genutzt werden können. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist die Weiterentwicklung von Indikatorenkonzepten zu einem handlungsrelevanten und im Planungs- und Umsetzungsprozess nutzbaren Werkzeug von besonderer Bedeutung. Darüber hinaus verlangt auch die zunehmende Flexibilisierung und Dezentralisierung von Planungsinstrumenten und -entscheidungen eine Stärkung von Monitoring- und Controllinginstrumenten. Zukünftig wird zudem die strategische Umweltprüfung für Pläne und Programme (SUP-RL) ein Monitoring der Pläne und Programme erfordern. Das vorliegende Buch wendet sich an Wissenschaftler und Planungspraktiker sowie Studierende der Planungswissenschaften, die sich mit Fragen der Bestimmung, Messung und Steuerung nachhaltiger Raumentwicklung befassen. Neben elementaren theoretischen Grundlagen zum Komplex nachhaltige Raumentwicklung und Indikatoren werden zentrale planungspraktische Fragen zur Anwendung von Nachhaltigkeitsindikatoren im Planungsprozess thematisiert. Durch die Auswertung und die Diskussion zahlreicher Indikatoren in der Planungspraxis werden Nutzen und Grenzen dieses Instrumentariums verdeutlicht. Abschließend zeigt der Autor die Weiterentwicklung der Indikatoren zu einem Monitoring- und Controllingsystem auf

Nach Katastrophen wie im Sommer 2021 im Ahrtal stellt sich die Frage, ob es Sinn macht, zerstörte Gebäude an gleicher Stelle wiederaufzubauen, oder sie besser proaktiv umzusiedeln. Dabei bieten sich gerade beim Wieder- und Neuaufbau nach Extremwetterereignissen neue Gelegenheitsfenster für die Resilienzsteigerung und Klimaanpassung.

Since the signing of the Agenda 21 and the HABITAT resolutions, sustainable development has become an important principle for spatial planning in Europe. The European Minister Conference on Regional and Spatial Planning (CEMAT), for example, resolved "Guidelines for sustainable spatial planning on the European Continent" during its meeting in Hanover in 2000. Although the principle of sustainable development has gained popularity in regional planning it has not been widely implemented. The main weaknesses in terms of the implementation are the vague definition of sustainability and the variety of goals which have been developed for the principle of sustainable development. With the amendment of the Legislation in Germany (Federal Regional Planning Act and the Building Code) in 1998, sustainable development has been established as a guiding principle for spatial planning in Germany. In order to meet the demands of sustainable spatial development implementation must occur in the state legislation as well as in the regional planning documents and strategies. The regional planning authorities of North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW) have developed a new generation of regional plans. Although ecological, social and economical aims have been included in these plans, many conflicts between the different goals still remain. In Poland, since the change of the political and economical system in 1988/89, sustainable development has also become a main principle for the further development of the country. In 1998 the principle of sustainable development was integrated into the new Polish constitution. The Polish system of regional planning is still being developed in consequence of the reform of the territorial and administrative structure of the country in 1999. Although the reform is not finished yet, guiding documents for the new regions (voivodships) already exist. These are the 'Preconditions for development' and 'Development Strategies', which contain the main goals for the development of the voivodships. They are necessary to get financial support from the central government for regional projects. The paper will examine the question of how sustainable spatial development has already been implemented in the legal basis and in fundamental documents of regional planning in the region (voivodship) of West Pomerania (Poland) and North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany. The main focus will be on the goals related to sustainable regional development, such as containing urban sprawl, open space protection, improved mobility. Equally important is the description of the structure of regional planning in North-Rhine-Westphalia compared to the situation in West Pomerania (Poland). The relationship between the state-, regional- and local-planning institutions will be analyzed. Specific attention will be given to the role of regional plans within the two different regions. Finally, the paper will deal with the limitations in implementing sustainable spatial development in regional planning documents. In this context the paper will examine the practical problems of integrating sectoral planning approaches, such as transportation, within regional planning processes to achieve sustainable development.

"Reducing risk that emerges from hazards of natural origin and societal vulnerability is a key challenge for the development of more resilient communities and the overall goal of sustainable development. Newest global assessment reports (GAR 2011, Welle et al. 2012; IPCC 2013) underscore that risk reduction and resilience building remains a key challenge for developing and developed countries alike particularly due to the increasing exposure of people and assets in high risk zones and the intensification of extreme events in the context of climate change (see e.g. IPCC 2013). It is increasingly recognized that natural hazard associated risk and threats to human security cannot be reduced by focusing solely on the hazards. Societies will have to live with changing environmental conditions and therefore need to build resilience by reducing vulnerabilities to natural hazards. Vulnerability assessment of natural hazards and climate change has emerged in the past decades as an important research field (see e.g., Maskrey, 1984; Chambers, 1989; Pelling, 1997; Cardona, 2001; Birkmann, 2006a/b; Adger, 2006; IPCC, 2007; Bohle, 2008; Bohle and Glade, 2008; Oxfam America, 2009, Birkmann 2013) bringing together scientists from different disciplines (Fuchs, 2009)"--

AbstractResponding to recently identified challenges in the comprehensive evaluation of climate change adaptation, we suggest an assessment framework that incorporates a multidisciplinary viewpoint on adaptation. The framework combines three major components to link system‐oriented concepts of risk and vulnerability to natural hazards and climate change with actor‐oriented approaches of decision‐making: the risk context, individual decision‐making, and adaptation assessment. We have thereby developed an approach that is embedded in context and scale, takes an actor‐oriented perspective, and is applicable to multiple evaluation approaches. We tested the framework empirically with a mixed‐methods approach to assess adaptation in flood‐exposed areas of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. This has shown the distinct meanings of good adaptation and uncovered mismatches in choices for adaptation strategies and evaluations of those strategies across different actors hindering sustainable development.