Systems Approach to Regional Climate Change Adaptation Strategies in Metropolises

1. Introduction
2. Essay
3. Global Cities Institute - RMIT University, Australia invites your response

Introduction

Tim Smith, associate professor at University of Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Geoff Withycombe, Beth Beveridge and Craig Morrison at Sydney Coastal Council Group Inc., Benjamin Preston, Kathleen McInnes and Deborah Abbs at CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Cassandra Brooke, manager climate change adaptation science at WWF-Australia, Russell Gorddard and Tom G. Measham at CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, write,

“The Systems Approach to Regional Climate Change Adaptation Strategies in Metropolises project is developing and testing an integrated, systems approach to assisting the fifteen Sydney Coastal Councils Group (SCCG) member councils in assessing their vulnerability to climate change and the barriers and opportunities associated with adaptation at the Local Government scale. One of the exciting aspects of the SCCG project is the way it has incorporated a top-down approach to vulnerability assessment with a bottom-up, stakeholder-led narrative process. As the project has progressed, there has been considerable interest in the project’s methods and outcomes on behalf of media and stakeholders outside the SCCG member councils and the project partners.”

The views expressed in this essay/article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the RMIT Global Cities Institute. Readers should note that RMIT Global Cities Institute seeks a diversity of views and opinions on contentious topics in order to identify common ground.

Essay

Systems Approach to Regional Climate Change Adaptation Strategies in Metropolises   
By Tim Smith, Geoff Withycombe, Benjamin Preston, Cassandra Brooke, Russell Gorddard, Tom G. Measham, Beth Beveridge, Craig Morrison, Kathleen McInnes, and Deborah Abbs

Overview

The goal of this eighteen month Sydney Coastal Councils Group (SCCG) project (concluding August 2008) is to work with Local Councils in the Sydney coastal region to determine their key climate vulnerabilities and their capacities to reduce those vulnerabilities through adaptation policies and measures.  The project also explores key themes of ‘systems approaches’ to climate vulnerability; integration; and partnering for science impact.  These are core elements of ‘post-normal’ approaches to science where researchers work in collaboration with stakeholders in addressing complex problems with environmental, social, economic and cultural dimensions. The project approach will be tested to assess transferability to other urban regions throughout Australia as a means of expanding the range of tools available for facilitating climate adaptation.

This integrated assessment project aims to:

• Develop and test an integrated (systems) method to generate information about the likely impacts of climate change and feasible adaptation strategies in the Sydney region;
• Deepen the understanding of the likely impacts of climate change and resulting adaptation options in the Sydney region through integration of existing models, generation of new knowledge where there are significant gaps, scenario analysis, and analysis of adaptive capacity;.
• Assess the transferability of the integrated (systems) method to other large urban areas;
• Improve the capacity of councils to respond and adapt to climate change.

Background

In 2005, the Sydney Coastal Councils Group (SCCG), via an annual survey, identified that its member councils required improved information to plan for the impacts of climate change. To address this knowledge gap the SCCG and CSIRO held a workshop to scope a potential project using a systems approach to assist Sydney Local Governments’ management of climate change and its impacts (Withycombe et al., 2005).  The resulting project is being funded under the Australian Government Department of Climate Change (DCC) Human Settlement Integrated Assessment subprogram and is one of five national projects.

The project is comprised of three key phases (Table 1).  Additional details regarding the methods and desired outcomes associated with each of these phases are discussed further below.

Table 1. Research phases in the SCCG integrated assessment project

Phase I: Vulnerability Assessment and Mapping

The climate change vulnerability assessment methodology is conceptually similar to that used in a prior assessment of climate change vulnerability in the European Union (Metzger et al., 2005).  Rather than use predictive modelling methods whereby quantitative impacts are estimated in response to climate scenarios, climate change vulnerability is assessed through the integration of indicators of regional climate exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity.  This approach enables changes in the biophysical environment (e.g., climate variability and change) to be examined in the context of socio-economic factors that may influence future risk including access to capital to facilitate adaptation as well as institutional processes and barriers that influence the implementation of adaptive measures.

Vulnerability was assessed for five different climate impacts: heat-related health impacts, coastal hazards, extreme rainfall and urban runoff, bushfire, and ecosystem resilience.  Indicators for the assessment of vulnerability were drawn from a wide range of sources, including climate scenario generators, regional climate observations, environmental assessment data, topographic data and census data regarding household characteristics. Indicators were assigned simple qualitative rankings and combined within a geographic information system environment.  This enabled vulnerability to be mapped, with areas of greater or lesser vulnerability identified based upon the cumulative influence of various indicators.

Vulnerability mapping was used as a tool for engaging with local government stakeholders on the issue of climate change vulnerability and risk and for stimulating thinking about the diversity of factors that might affect current and future vulnerability and how they may be managed.    

Phase II: Council Workshops

During the workshop process, Local Government stakeholders were presented with the vulnerability mapping conducted during Phase I and given the opportunity to digest and comment on the results and their implications.  Stakeholders were then facilitated through ‘systems thinking’ exercises to identify key climate change issues for Local Councils. This was designed to aid stakeholders in thinking about the local environment as a complex system comprised of multiple drivers, responses and interactions. From this scoping exercise, councils identified priority areas for climate change adaptation efforts. They then identified the key opportunities and barriers associated with addressing these issues. 

The outputs from all fifteen workshops have been analysed to provide a regional snapshot of the cross-cutting barriers and opportunities associated with SCCG member councils.  This has included the analysis of the frequency with which different climate change impacts have been prioritised as key challenges by councils, and, similarly, the frequency with which different barriers have been reported by councils as significant obstacles to advancing adaptive management of climate change. Collectively, this information will help elucidate the challenges associated with climate adaptation in urban environments and provide a comprehensive view of the needs of Local Governments in the SCCG region (and likely elsewhere) with respect to overcoming such challenges. 

Phase III: Case Studies  

The information generated from the first two phases of the project is now being utilised to support the final project phase – the case study investigations. The case studies will further identify what is preventing councils from adapting to climate change by looking at the institutional issues associated with adaptation and the constraints and barriers on decision-making processes.  Case studies are targeting specific adaptation barriers that are common to many, if not all, of the SCCG member councils.  Through in-depth interviews with council staff as well as the analysis of institutional procedures and decision-making instruments, the case studies will aid in identifying and recommending specific future interventions that can be made to improve councils’ capacity to adapt to climate change.  By focusing on some of the most common and significant barriers, the case studies target investigation where it is most needed and where interventions may have the best chance of breaking adaptation gridlocks. 

Opportunities and Benefits

The SCCG integrated assessment project will deliver multiple benefits to researchers and Local Government practitioners:

1. The integration of climate change-related science and information with local government policy and practices;
2. The development and assessment of methods to improve the adaptive capacity of councils to address climate change; and
3. The identification of opportunities and benefits of improved regional coordination of climate change adaptation strategies.

In addition to these benefits, the project will provide numerous opportunities to improve Local Government adaptation, both to climate change and global change more broadly. Phase Three of the project will provide a more detailed analysis of some of these opportunities. Exploiting these opportunities will likely involve: identifying key institutional reforms including relationships among the three levels of government; developing new legislative, planning and decision-making processes to deal with the required adaptations and uncertainties associated with climate change; and also the development of mechanisms to more effectively engage with communities about climate change responses.

Constraints and Costs

This project addresses important constraints that appear early in the adaptation process by providing the resources, processes and frameworks to begin scoping out and planning adaptation responses. In a new and complex area where a highly structured process is not possible, a range of new constraints can be expected to emerge. Complex institutional and organisational change issues are likely to emerge as key constraints to future adaptation.

As climate change assessments and engagement are part of the larger process of adaptation, the challenges faced in the development of the project as well as securing funding and partners are also an important consideration.  Although the project was generously financed by the DCC and co-investment by the CSIRO, funding constraints limited the scope of the project.  As with any integrated assessment project, one also must be sensitive to demands placed on both researchers and stakeholders with respect to time commitments, communication and transparency, management of expectations, as well as information sensitivity and ownership of outputs. 

Progress and Future Planning

To track progress with the SCCG project and maximise its utility in support of future adaptation, both within the SCCG region as well as other areas of Australia, a project monitoring and evaluation strategy has been implemented for the life of the project.  To date, by all measures the project has progressed smoothly − several key milestones have been completed and execution of the third and final phase has commenced.  The project has been viewed as successful in what it has accomplished to date by the DCC who review project progress through regular progress reports.  The SCCG member council stakeholders who represent the end users of the project also receive regular project updates and have been asked to participate in project evaluation. From the stakeholder feedback received to date there has been raised awareness of the impacts of climate change, and the complexity of its implications for councils. 

As the project has progressed, there has been considerable interest in the project’s methods and outcomes on behalf of media and stakeholders outside the SCCG member councils and the project partners.  This reflects not only the high profile of the project and the study region, but also the high demand that currently exists among a diverse array of stakeholders for information regarding the implications of climate change at the regional to local level as well as methods for facilitating climate change adaptation.  To capitalise upon and better manage such interest, a National Reference Group (NRG) has been established for the project.  Comprised of key individuals from the three levels of government, researchers and the private sector, the NRG exists to facilitate the transfer of the project methodologies, outcomes and importantly the lessons learned to the wider Australian community.  The NRG also acts to meet one of the key goals of the research from the perspective of the DCC – namely, to use the integrated assessment projects as vehicles for disseminating methods and tools throughout Australia while simultaneously evaluating their potential utility.  It is also important to note that a number of academic publications have already emerged from the project (see references) that have also aided in spreading knowledge about methods and results.

With respect to future steps, a research agenda has already been outlined that builds upon the existing project.  Initially, the SCCG project was conceived of having two stages.  The first stage consists of the three projects phases described above. It is this first stage which has been funded by the DCC and which is scheduled for completion in mid-2008.  In addition, however, a second stage was envisioned whereby the recommendations and analyses of the first stage would used to help select and design actual adaptation strategies or processes that could be undertaken as demonstration projects in some councils.  The monitoring of these demonstration projects, how they were selected, implemented and the outcomes they achieve was deemed an important process in applying the learning from the first project stage.  This second stage is currently unfunded, but the project partners continue to seek support to extent the scope of the current project.

In addition to such explicit research plans, a diversity of tools and methods are utilised in the SCCG project that are likely to be adopted in future research by other institutions for other regions and purposes.  One of the exciting aspects of the SCCG project is the way it has incorporated a top-down approach to vulnerability assessment with a bottom-up, stakeholder-led narrative process.  In so doing, much experience has been gained with respect to how stakeholders respond to different types of tools as well as the needs of local government stakeholders with respect to information and frameworks for decision-making.  The learning from this project will therefore seek to guide to what extent, and in what contexts, each of these methods of assessment should be used and combined, and how best to communicate climate vulnerability to different sets of stakeholders.

Endnotes

Beveridge, B., Preston, B.,  Withycombe, G., Morrison, C., Smith, T.F. , Brooke, C., Gorddard, R., Measham, T., Abbs, D., and McInnes, K. (2007). Integrated approaches to regional climate change adaptation strategies: project methodology, results and key lessons learnt. New South Wales Coastal Conference, Yamba, NSW, 7-9 November, 2007.

Metzeger, M.l.J., Leemans, R., Schröter, D. (2005). A multidisciplinary multi-scale framework for assessing vulnerability to global change. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 7, 253-267.

Preston, B.L., Abbs, D., Beveridge, B., Brooke, C., Gorddard, R., Measham, T.G., Hunt, G., Justus, M., Kinrade, P., Macadam, I., McInnes, K., Morrison, C., Smith, T.F., Withycombe, G. (2007). Spatial approaches for assessing vulnerability and consequences in climate change assessments.  In Oxley, L. and Kulasiri, D. (eds) MODSIM 2007 International Congress on Modelling and Simulation. Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand, December 2007, ISBN: 978-0-9758400-4-7, pp. 261-267. 

Preston, B.L., Smith, T., Brooke, C., Gorddard, R., Measham, T., Withycombe, G., McInnes, K., Abbs, D., Beveridge, B., and Morrison, C. (2008). Mapping Climate Change Vulnerability in the Sydney Coastal Councils Group. Prepared for the Sydney Coastal Councils Group and the Commonwealth Department of Climate Change by the CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship, Canberra.

Smith, T.F., Preston, B.L., McInnes, K., and Withycombe, G. (2005). A systems approach to coastal research and management. 15th NSW Coastal Conference 8-11 November, 2005.

Smith, T.F., Brooke, C., Preston, B., Gorddard, R., Abbs, D., McInnes, K., Withycombe, G. and Morrison, C., (2007). Managing for climate variability in the Sydney region. Journal of Coastal Research, SI 50, 109-113, ISSN 0749.0208

Withycombe, G., Smith, T.F., Brooke, C., Preston, B., Gorddard, R., Abbs, D., and McInnes, K., Beveridge, B., and Morrison, C. (2007). Managing for climate variability in the Sydney region – issues, needs and new solutions for local government. Queensland Coastal Conference, Bundaberg, QLD, 17-19 September, 2007.

Global Cities Institute - RMIT University, Australia invites your response

AdaptNet invites your responses to this article. Please send responses to the editor AdaptNet, Saleem Janjua: adaptnet@rmit.edu.au

Responses will be considered for redistribution to the network only if they include the author's name, affiliation, and explicit consent.

AdaptNet subscription information

AdaptNet is a free weekly report produced by RMIT University Global Cities Institute's Climate Change Adaptation Working Group, Melbourne, Australia.

• Subscribe or unsubscribe.
• View the archive: 2006, 2007, 2008.

Translations

• Terjemahan dalam Bahasa Indonesia: 2007, 2008.
  
• AdaptNet in Vietnamese: 2007, 2008.
  

For further information, please contact the editor, Saleem Janjua.