Planning for Climatic Extremes and Variability: A Review of Swedish Municipalities’ Adaptation Responses

Publisher： MDPI

E-ISSN： 2071-1050|6|3|1359-1385

ISSN： 2071-1050

Source： Sustainability, Vol.6, Iss.3, 2014-03, pp. : 1359-1385

Disclaimer: Any content in publications that violate the sovereignty, the constitution or regulations of the PRC is not accepted or approved by CNPIEC.

Previous Menu Next

Abstract

Climate change poses a serious challenge to sustainable urban development worldwide. In Sweden, climate change work at the city level emerged in 1996 and has long had a focus on mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. City planners’ “adaptation turn” is recent and still ongoing. This paper presents a meta-evaluation of Swedish municipal adaptation approaches, and how they relate to institutional structures at different levels. The results show that although increasing efforts are being put into the identification of barriers to adaptation planning, in contrast, there is little assessment or systematization of the actual adaptation measures and mainstreaming strategies taken. On this basis, opportunities for advancing a more comprehensive approach to sustainable adaptation planning at both the local and institutional level are discussed.