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Universitat Internacional de Catalunya

Climate Resilient Urban Design

Climate Resilient Urban Design
3
14885
1
First semester
OB
Main language of instruction: English

Other languages of instruction: Catalan, Spanish

Teaching staff


Professor Climate Resilient Urban Design:

Dr. Lorenzo CHELLERI, lchelleri@uic.es

Teaching staff are available by appointment through email.

Introduction

Professor Climate Resilient Urban Design:

Dr. Lorenzo CHELLERI

This course addresses climate resilience in urban areas by sharing the main concepts and theoretical frameworks currently used by science, policy-makers and urban practitioners. 

In the first part, we examine international climate change consequences, latest negotiations, and policies, focusing on the role of cities in addressing the climate emergency and how approaches of urban resilience and adaptation options are mobilized. In a second part, the broader understanding of urban resilience will be introduced to frame climate resilience into a justice and sustainability framework. 

Students will be encouraged to take a more critical perspective by applying tools to assess current instruments based on established quality criteria and by discussing examples in practice.


Pre-course requirements

There are no prerequisites.

Objectives

  • To introduce the students to the main challenges of climate change in urban areas by sharing key concepts and most recent available knowledge.

  • To familiarize students with tools for assessing urban climate risks and resilience and with the diverse instruments for promoting urban climate adaptation.

  • To situate learnings by promoting field observation and critical analysis of on-site urban climate solutions.

  • To introduce a multidisciplinary perspective on the meanings of urban resilience, exploring the linkages between resilience, sustainability and justice.

Syllabus

Key concepts and latest  knowledge on  climate change in  urban areas

Sharing  tools for designing  urban climate  solutions

Urban resilience  definitions and  approaches

City Resilience Index + Climate Plans

Urban Resileince Assessment Frameworks



Evaluation systems and criteria

In person



Students will be graded following this scheme:

  • 20% Attendance and participation in class

  • 40% Group presentations of the activities proposed, and questions asked to colleagues

  • 40% Essay on the lessons learned at the field visit.

Bibliography and resources

Anguelovski, I., & Carmin, J.A. (2011). Something borrowed, everything new: Innovation and institutionalization in urban climate governance. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 3(3), 169-175. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2010.12.017 

Bulkeley, H. (2021) Climate changed urban futures: environmental politics in the anthropocene city. Environmental Politics, 30:1-2, 266-284, http://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2021.1880713

Chelleri, L., T. Schuetze, and L. Salvati. 2015. “Integrating Resilience with Urban Sustainability in Neglected Neighborhoods: Challenges and Opportunities of Transitioning to Decentralized Water Management in Mexico City.” Habitat International 48 (0): 122–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.03.016

Chelleri, Lorenzo, and Aliaksandra Baravikova. 2021. “Understandings of Urban Resilience Meanings and Principles across Europe.” Cities 108 (January): 102985. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2020.102985.

Chelleri, Lorenzo, Guido Minucci, and Eirini Skrimizea. n.d. “Does Community Resilience Decrease Social–Ecological Vulnerability? Adaptation Pathways Trade-off in the Bolivian Altiplano.” Regional Environmental Change, 1–13

Dodman, D., B. Hayward, M. Pelling, V. Castan Broto, W. Chow, E. Chu, R. Dawson, L. Khirfan, T. McPhearson, A. Prakash, Y. Zheng, and G. Ziervogel (2022) Cities, Settlements and Key Infrastructure. In: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, et al. (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Chapter06.pdf 

Lwasa, S., K.C. Seto, X. Bai, H. Blanco, K.R. Gurney, Ş. Kılkış, O. Lucon, J. Murakami, J. Pan, A. Sharifi, Y. Yamagata (2022) Urban systems and other settlements. In: IPCC, 2022: Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [P.R. Shukla, J. Skea, R. Slade, et al. (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_Chapter08.pdf 

Meerow, S., & Woodruff, S. C. (2020). Seven principles of strong climate change planning. Journal of the American Planning Association, 86(1), 39-46.

Reckien, D., Buzasi, A., Olazabal, M., Spyridaki, N. A., Eckersley, P., Simoes, S. G., ... & Wejs, A. (2023). Quality of urban climate adaptation plans over time. npj Urban Sustainability, 3(1), 13.

Reckien, D., Salvia, M., Heidrich, O., Church, J. M., Pietrapertosa, F., De Gregorio-Hurtado, S., ... & Dawson, R. (2018). How are cities planning to respond to climate change? Assessment of local climate plans from 885 cities in the EU-28. Journal of cleaner production, 191, 207-219.

Rosenzweig, C., Solecki, W. D., Romero-Lankao, P., Mehrotra, S., Dhakal, S., & Ibrahim, S. A. (Eds.). (2018). Climate change and cities: Second assessment report of the urban climate change research network. Cambridge University Press.

Ruiz-Mallén, I., March, H. & Satorras, M. (Eds.) (2022). Urban resilience to climate emergency: Unravelling the transformative potential of institutional and grassroots initiatives. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07301-4_8