IMAGINE climate change adaptation in urban areas

ongoing

Impacts of climate change are happening as a result of extreme temperatures, sea-level rise, storm surges or droughts. Communities and governments across the globe are preparing through actions to increase climate resilience. However, progress made to date to adapt is still poorly understood and tracked due to a lack of theoretical understanding and means to evaluate how well the world is adapting. Further barriers are unclear goals and metrics for adaptation in the absence of a shared definition of successful adaptation. Finding a response to this question is at the core of the international climate debate and has particular significance at the local level where assets and lives of millions of people are at risk. 'IMAGINE adaptation' addresses the imperative of how to evaluate adaptation in urban areas as a contemporary complex phenomenon with implications across governance scales. The current focus on policy progress can be useful as a first step, but it is not indicative of effective adaptation. A broader understanding of success in adaptation is required: one that transcends technocratic approaches and considers equity, justice and maladaptive issues. Through 'IMAGINE adaptation', I aim to respond to four timely and ambitious objectives: First, I will revisit and reformulate the concept of successful adaptation using expert and local views (Objective 1, O1). Second, I will explore trends and needs regarding monitoring and evaluation and how these may enable or hinder adaptation (O2). Third, I will participate and learn from local adaptation evaluation practices through a comparative case study research across 12 urban areas worldwide (O3). Finally, I will discuss how evaluations of local progress can inform global goals (O4). The outputs of this project will be a reference for future adaptation assessment studies and will pioneer the understanding of the ways to enable far-reaching transformative urban adaptation through processes of evaluation and learning.