in
Southeast Asia
Partnership Project
Urban Climate Resilience
Introduction
Overall objective:
The overall objecive of this project is to enhance the economic and social resiliency of ciies in the Southeast Asia, recognizing the important connecions between urbanizaion, the efects of climate change, public awareness, and societal well-being.
Speciic Objective:
The speciic objecive of the project is to provide vulnerable people in transiional states with the space to learn about and share in decisions about protecing themselves from the economic, social, and physical impacts of climate change.
The Urban Climate Resilience in Southeast Asia Partnership is co-led by the Thailand Environment Insitute and the University of Toronto. Together with academic,
Expected outcomes
• Advance knowledge: Invesigate the economic, social, and physical impacts of climate change on secondary ciies in the Lower Mekong region and the connecions between urbanizaion, the efects of climate change, public awareness, and societal well-being; conduct research on creaing inclusive and equitable climate-resilient urban governance through facilitaing dialogues in focus ciies with city planners and residents.
• Shape policy and inform pracice: Provide space for informed public dialogue in each target city to idenify opportuniies and prioriies for urban development; facilitate learning across ciies to promote professional exchange among NGOs and local government; develop and test tools for urban climate vulnerability assessment and resilience planning.
• Train a new generaion of scholars and leaders: Design and use locally appropriate educaional materials for use in public educaion and schools; develop methods for community-based organizaions and urban planners to facilitate ciizen engagement in building urban resilience to climate change; support graduate students to conduct research collaborate with Canadian peers.
Conceptual Framework
The conceptual framework provides overall intellectual guidance to the project paricipants.
The Urban Climate Resilience in Southeast Asia Partnership (UCRSAP) project is designed to ill a criical gap in understanding around regionalizaion and urbanizaion, and the growing risks posed by climate change in the countries of Southeast Asia. As such, the Partnership is commited to viewing urbanizaion as a transformaive process in terms of poverty, vulnerability, growth, and climate change impacts. In paricular, the focus is on a historical poliical economy or poliical ecology perspecive. We seek to understand ecology-human society interacions, primarily based on an actor-oriented approach.
A third guiding intellectual principle is that of supporing innovaive research, paricularly scholarly inquiry that links with the Partnership’s focus on urbanizaion as dependent on complex systems. Complexity theory suggests that beter governance requires lexible and adapive insituions capable of dealing with uncertainty and risk in ways that are representaive and paricipatory (Folke et al. 2005; Tyler and Moench 2012).
Research questions
The Urban Climate Resilience in Southeast Asia Partnership will work with two target secondary ciies in each of Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam to build their knowledge about potenial climate change impacts and how to consider and implement adaptaion measures that respond to climate change. The research agenda of the Partnership is driven by following quesions, none of which are mutually exclusive and which build upon each other in a sequenial manner. This project seeks to enhance the economic and social resiliency of ciies. Researchers will inform and facilitate public dialogues to strengthen urban populaions’ resilience to climate change. Research will focus on eight medium-sized ciies in the Lower Mekong region that have received litle atenion to date. With demographic growth, more and more urban residents are vulnerable to the physical consequences and the social and economic costs of climate change.
1. How will climate change impact the poverty and vulnerability of urban residents in Southeast Asia?
2. What does knowledge, from both academic literature and acion research, tell us about creaing climate resilient urban governance
that is both inclusive and equitable?
Contacts
Co-Directors: Amrita ([email protected])
and Pakamas ([email protected])
Project Manager (Canada): Alicia ([email protected])
Project Manager (Thailand): Pimolwan ([email protected])
Project Coordinator (Thailand): Krongjit ([email protected])
Website:
htp://urbanclimateresiliencesea.apps01.yorku.ca
Urban Climate Resilience in Southeast Asia Partnership (UCRSAP) project
is under the 2013 Internaional Partnerships for Sustainable Socieies (IPaSS), a joint iniiaive under the Partnership Grants. The project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humaniies Research Council (SSHRC)
and the Internaional Development Research Centre (IDRC)
