New publication in Nature Cities

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Coastal urban adaptation progresses but it is not yet on track to meet future climate risks.

The systematic evidence mapping lays open gaps in speed, scope and depth of adaptation, a lack of considering future vulnerability trends, high adaptation burden on individuals in lower-income cities as well as geographical biases in research.

In collaboration with 24 co-authors, Dr. Mia Wannewitz (LMU) has published a paper in Nature Cities that presents progress and gaps in climate change adaptation in coastal cities around the world.

Together with Prof. Matthias Garschagen and Dr. Jan Petzold (both from LMU), Dr. Wannewitz and the author team systematically assessed empirical evidence for coastal urban adaptation as presented in the scientific literature to understand whether and to what extent coastal cities are on track to prepare for climate risks.

The analysis resulted in four key findings. First, adaptation in coastal cities is rather slow, of narrow scope, and not transformative. Second, adaptation measures are predominantly designed based on past and current, rather than future, patterns in hazards, exposure, and vulnerability. Third, city governments, particularly in high-income countries, are more likely to implement institutional and infrastructural responses, while coastal cities in lower-middle income countries often rely on households to implement behavioral adaptation. And fourth, the results indicate that there is comparatively little published knowledge on coastal urban adaptation in low and middle income economies and regarding particular adaptation types such as ecosystem based adaptation.

These insights make an important contribution to tracking adaptation progress globally and help to identify entry points for improving adaption of coastal cities in the future.

For more information, please find the open-access paper here:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s44284-024-00106-9