POLICY BRIEF
nClimate change impacts affect multiple sectors and at varying scales.
nIntroducing a climate resilience agenda to the urban planning and development paradigm would help integrate this new challenge with the overall development vision of the cities in India.
nNeed to sensitize and amend regulations and institutions and find ways for institutional coordination and integration to achieve this.
nOvercoming capacity gaps should be addressed through training, capacity building and general awareness programs targeting multiple stakeholders at various levels.
nData management systems have to be developed to base and inform decision making and subsequently developing resilience strategies.
nIt is also observed that toolkits and guidebooks would prove to be essential and useful means to help cities develop their resilience plans.
nContextualization of available global experiences of resilience planning to suit regional needs is an
essential component of the overall resilience mandate. A larger exercise is therefore needed to be taken up where various states come together, to review and revise their existing development regulations, guidelines and bye-laws to bring in climate resilience.
Climate Resilience in the Built Environment
3
KEY
MESSA
G
E
VISION FOR CLIMATE RESILIENT CITIES
1
I
ncreasing urban population and rapid urbanization has led to tremendous pressure on infrastructure and services over the cities in India. Burgeoning demand for housing and the city's inability to fulfill the same has led to proliferation of slums. Systemic inefficiencies have led to poor management of city affairs. Urban sprawl has led to extensive deforestation and change in land use land cover with an increase in the built-up area.Climate change and its associated impacts would only add to these challenges. Climate change impacts can wipe out development gains and would significantly reduce quality of life (Prasad et al, 2009:10).
In case of inaction, climate change impacts would work in two ways:
1. The gradual impacts of climate change like change in pattern of rainfalls and change in temperatures would anyway force us to either adapt or bear the brunt; for example; responding to diseases and epidemics because of temperature rise, or water scarcity and urban flooding due to changing rainfall patterns.
2. The climate impacts leading to extreme events like increased instances of cyclones would extend loss of lives, property, livelihood and infrastructure. Besides leading to huge economic loss, the social costs of these damages would be huge, particularly to the vulnerable sections like poor, disabled and children.
There is, therefore, a need to understand the implications of climate change, its associated impacts on urban systems and the vulnerability in terms of vulnerable sectors, hot spots and population. This understanding should be utilized for future and current planning practices to reduce vulnerability and to steer urban development towards climate resilience. However, this could only happen when climate considerations are mainstreamed into the development discourse. This would lead to a holistic rather than sectoral engagement in dealing with the impacts of climate change. To expedite action and draw early lessons from these actions, there is merit in
CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
2
Water scarcity is the main threat to the city of Indore, with the level of water demand far outstripping the supply
Flooding, coastal storms and cyclones, sea level rise and inundation are major threats to the port city of Surat
City resilience strategy document
City resilience strategy document
nTesting and promoting decentralized
systems for differential water sources and uses
nStrengthening vector-borne disease
surveillance and response systems
nEnd-to-end Early Warning System nUrban Health and Climate Resilience
Center
Indore
Surat
City Climate vulnerability ACCCRN outcomes implemented under ACCCRNCity projects identified and
Table: Summary of ACCCRN interventions in 3 core cities
Prolonged water logging together with poor waste management has caused an increase in the incidence of vector borne diseases
nCity resilience strategy
document
nResilience strategy
mainstreaming plan
nImplementing and Promoting Ward-level
Micro Resilience Planning
nImplementing and Promoting Adaptive
Peri-Urban Agriculture
Gorakhpur
Urban development paradigm is steered primarily by extent and manner in which the built environment and various land uses are housed and planned within the city limits. Climate change will have the potential to influence the built environment negatively. For example, increase in temperature would lead to enhanced heat island effect in urban areas. Similarly, change in precipitation levels would lead to increased incidence of flash floods and water logging in the cities and dampness in buildings. These changes would affect the infrastructure and services of the city; for example; disturbed water supply due to drought conditions, problems related to
transport due to floods and inundation. The current planning for infrastructure and services does not factor impact of climate change on the city. The existing infrastructure in most of the cities and towns is inadequate even for current needs. The degree of impacts of climate change is hence intricately linked to the urban land use choices that we make today and would have the ability to exacerbate these negative influences if combined with faulty urban planning practices. Additionally, the impacts of climate change also have strong social consequences as the poor are the worst hit from these events.
Resilient planning would include preparing urban systems, built environment and social fabric to withstand these changes and associated impacts. For example appropriate road pavement design and urban greening could lead to reduction in the Urban Heat Island effect. Similarly, adopting principle of inclusive planning and
ascertaining access to insurance would help reduce the social vulnerability. Gorakhpur and Guwahati are two ACCCRN cities with flooding and water logging as their perpetual problem. Climate projections for both the cities show increased intensity of extreme rainfall events. However, in neither of the cities, the existing bye-laws address the need for fundamental design changes to respond to the problem of flooding and waterlogging.
Moreover, damage to settlements, human lives, health, and loss of livelihood are some of the associated impacts of climate change. In Surat, the textile industry faces loss of material and livelihoods of its workers due to floods (TARU, 2011). All these examples have
ascertained the inherent relationship of the built environment, urban planning and climatic parameters and the urgent need for planned interventions in this direction. The ACCCRN program has recognized this and adopted some interventions in the core cities of the program (highlighted in the table).
In Guwahati, the changing rainfall patterns have led to increase in the total volume of rainfall in a day. Since, most of watershed area and natural drainage area are now built up, a lot of waterlogging takes place and the rainwater does not get drained out (TERI, 2013).
Increased rainfall intensity in
INTEGRATION OF RESILIENCE MEASURES IN THE DEVELOPMENT
PLANNING FRAMEWORK
3
ENTRY POINTS AT NATIONAL LEVEL
1. A policy proposing climate resilience agenda for India's urban centres
2. Integrate climate resilience through flagship schemes of the Government of India
Although, urban development is a state subject, the central government contributes to major funding for urban development and oversees many national level schemes and policies to influence and foster urban development.
The Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) as the nodal agency for urban development planning in India is better placed to draw up a new policy that proposes a new climate resilience agenda for India's urban centers. The policy must initiate research, capacity building and data management as its starting point considering the fact that knowledge about specific climate change related impacts on urban centers is not available and would differ from city to city. The policy could forward the objectives that are drawn out within the National Mission on Sustainable Habitat.
i) JNNURM Phase II: In line with CDPs and city mobility plans prepared under JNNURM, the new phase of JNNURM could foster preparation of climate resilience strategy within each mission cities as one of the reforms that the city should comply with. Funds could be allocated under JNNURM towards adaptation planning/ projects that would emerge from the resilience strategy. These could be funds to generate data, to facilitate city specific research, and implement short and medium term adaptation projects.
ii) The Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (MoHUPA) is the apex authority to formulate national level policies. MoHUPA is also the nodal Ministry for implementation of the component on Basic Services to Urban Poor (BSUP) under JnNURM and the Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) - a scheme that targets provision of low cost housing to the urban poor. The ACCCRN initiatives have highlighted urban poor as the most vulnerable population due to climate change due to their marginalized position in society and lack of access to proper housing, and basic While the pilot projects identified in the core cities
were important in terms of measurability of success of the initiative, the notion of integration of
resilience measures in the development planning process in the project cities and later in the larger policy regulatory framework was understood as an essential element within the program.
services. Fostering 'climate resilient communities' within these schemes would help in targeting the climate vulnerable strata of the society and make way for reducing their vulnerabilities. Some of these initiatives have to be focused around health issues and hence integrated policies with Ministry of Health would be beneficial to achieve overall objective of reduced vulnerability and increased community resilience.
iii) The elements of the Urban Sanitation Policy and the Service Level Benchmarks could integrate climate related parameters.
UDPFI guidelines: The Urban Development and Plan Formulation and Implementation (UDPFI) Guidelines are being used by the ULB or Development Authority for planning at city/zonal/ neighborhood level. The
guidelines are in the process of revision. Since the guidelines ascertain planning details at the level of the city and neighborhood, the guidelines have a great potential to instigate resilience/adaptation measures. For example, introduction of Sustainable Urban Drainage System (SUDS), which is a system to manage surface water runoff in a more sustainable manner, compared to traditional pipes (open/closed) systems (TERI, 2012).
The National Building Code of India (NBC): This comprehensive Building Code is a national instrument providing guidelines for regulating the building construction activities across the country. It serves as a Model Code for adoption by all agencies involved in building construction works, for example, the Public Works Departments (PWD), other government construction departments, local bodies or private construction agencies. The Code mainly contains administrative regulations, development control rules and general building requirements stipulations regarding materials, etc. The codes may be amended to bring in certain specific climate change related parameters that could help guide construction activities.
Urban development is a state subject according to The Constitution of India. Any institutionalization at state level for bringing in climate resilience within the state's agenda could be made through making an
amendment in the existing state level Acts. Besides this, the state level parastatals like: Jal Nigam (Water Boards), the Public Health and Engineering department (PHED) and The Public Works Department (PWD) are important institutions that would play a crucial role in restoring services and infrastructure during
emergencies/extreme events. These are also some of the institutions through which the adaptation projects and actions could be materialized on ground.
1. Planning: Till date the Master Plans are the crucial planning documents within the city driven through the city development authorities or the State Town and Country Planning Offices. Since these are also long term land use planning documents and also define and ascertain the development regulations and influence the building bye-laws, these are by far the most important document to be targeted at city level to include climate resilience. The Gorakhpur mainstreaming strategy and Guwahati resilience strategy calls for inclusion of a chapter on climate resilience (TERI 2012; TERI 2013) in their respective Master Plans.
2. Influencing Bye-laws and planning norms: Each city has separate building bye-law and planning norms which frame the development regulations for the city. These Bye-Laws are important tools and should be guided by climate information to bring in resilient construction and building design parameters into practice. For instance, in case of revised building byelaws to regulate the construction of buildings under the
jurisdiction of Guwahati Metropolitan Area, specific propositions were given on inclusion of specific energy efficiency measures on interior and exterior lighting, electrical systems, HVAC systems, integration of renewable energy systems and specific building envelope recommendations as per the climatic conditions of the region.
3. Revise and integrate resilience measures through national and state level guidelines
ENTRY POINTS AT STATE LEVEL
OVERCOMING THE INHERENT CHALLENGES – WAY FORWARD
4
Policy and institutional mandate: ACCCRN experience has shown that a strong policy and mandate at national and state level is necessary for more and more cities to take up resilience planning exercises. Institutional mandates are defined by clear objectives and vision for development. Introducing a climate resilience agenda to the urban planning and development paradigm would help integrate this new challenge with the overall
development vision of the cities in India.
Coordinated action at all levels of government: Experiences from ACCCRN India have highlighted that climate change impacts affects multiple sectors and at varying scales. The division of authority and institutional set-up at central, state and city level for climate sensitive sectors like disaster management, water, power etc. could impact timely coordination and real time decision making (Brown et al, 2012). Hence, there is a strong need for finding ways for institutional coordination and integration.
This would require a broader consensus and coordinated action at all levels of the government including a clear definition of institutional roles and responsibilities to achieve the agenda. Ascertaining and introducing climate resilience into existing regulations and informing/building capacity of related institutions would give an initial head start.
Capacity building: Considering that there is still a broader lack of awareness about climate change and its specific impacts on urban systems, there is indeed a need to find ways and means to address this knowledge gap. The most important step would be to equip the city managers and decision makers alike to appreciate climate resilience as one of the mandates for urban development planning and build their capacity to implement some of the reforms, actions and regulatory changes that are being proposed through this policy brief. It is also observed
Example from Surat
One of the key achievements of the project in Surat was the formation of the Urban Health and Climate Resilience Centre (UHCRC) and the Surat Climate Change Trust (SCCT). The Surat Climate Change Trust (SCCT) is a city level multi-stakeholder public trust having its office at the City Engineer's Office, SMC. It includes members from various institutions including Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority, Narmada, Water Resources and Water Supply Department, South Gujarat Chamber of Commerce & Industries, Academic Instructions (SVNIT and CSS). It was formulated with the objective of addressing problems arising out of urbanization and climate change and to facilitate capacity building of Surat to address these challenges (Surat Climate Change Trust. 2013. 'About us').
In 2012, SMC with support from the Rockefeller Foundation established a first of a kind institution in the country - the UHCRC (housed within SMC's Health Department) that aims to address public health and climate change adaptation issues (ACCCRN, 2012). SMC has allocated Rs. 10 million to UHCRC for its functioning (Bhat, 2013).
that toolkits and guidebooks would prove to be essential and useful means to help cities develop their resilience plans. ACCCRN experience gives two important lessons: i) The urgency to initiate fundamental changes in planning at all levels with resilience to climate change as the focal point; ii) Intensive action around implementation for the above plans at all scales. Needless to say, both of these require rigorous training, capacity building and general awareness and an overwhelming desire to walk the talk.
Data management: Data management systems have to be developed to base and inform decision making and subsequently developing resilience strategies.
A larger exercise to review and revise: While examples from initiatives like ACCRN and many other parallel initiatives globally provide extensive insights on the way forward in terms of mainstreaming, yet
contextualization of these experiences to suit regional needs is an essential component of the overall
Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) is a network of cities in India, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Bangladesh and Vietnam, experimenting with a range of activities that will collectively improve the ability of the cities to withstand, to prepare for, and to recover from the projected impacts of climate change. One of the key intervention focuses to build policy debate around UCCR. Policy makers seek evidence-based guidance as a foundation for decision-making. ACCCRN India partners have been working with cities in India since 2008 and it highlights sound practices, demonstration projects and interventions on building resilience to climate change.
It was recognized to tap the knowledge and develop evidence-based Policy Briefs to address the needs of the decision makers at the level of the national/state and city government on UCCR. In the period 2013-2014, ACCCRN India is producing a series of UCCR policy guidance briefs. For a complete list of reports, case studies, policy briefs, please visit www.acccrn.org
POLICY BRIEF OVERVIEW
References
Anna, Brown., Ashvin, Dayal., and Cristina Rumbaitis Del Rio. 2012. From practice to theory: emerging lessons from Asia for building urban climate change resilience. Environment and Urbanisation. 24: 531.
Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network, 2012. ACCCRN city projects. The Rockefeller Foundation, Thailand. Bhatt, H. 8 February 2013. Climate resilience centre to be operational by March. Times of India. Available at:
<http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-02-08/surat/36992648_1_research-centre-urban-health-surat-municipal-corporation>
Neeraj, Prasad., Federica, Ranghieri., Fatima, Shah., Zoe, Trohanis., Earl, Kessler., and Ravi, Sinha., 2009. Climate Resilient Cities-A Primer on Reducing Vulnerabilities to Disasters. [online] Washington DC: The World Bank. 160pp. Available at: <http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTEAPREGTOPURBDEV/Resources/Primer_e_book.pdf> [Accessed 20 September 2013]
Shiraz A, Wajih., Bijay, Singh., Ekta, Bartarya., Shukla, Basu., and ACCCRN ISET Team. 2010. Towards a Resilient Gorakhpur. GEAG, Gorakhpur.
Surat Climate Change Trust 2013. About us. Available at: <http://scctrust.in/Default1.aspx>
TERI. 2012. Mainstreaming Climate Resilience in Urban Areas – A case of Gorakhpur City. TERI, New Delhi.
TERI. 2013. Climate Proofing Guwahati, Assam. City Resilience strategy and Mainstreaming Plan (Synthesis Report). TERI, New Delhi
TARU. 2011. Surat City Resilience Strategy. Available at:
https://acccrn.org/sites/default/files/documents/SuratCityResilienceStrategy_ACCCRN_01Apr2011_small_0.pdf
This Policy Brief is written by: , www.teriin.org
Telephone: +91.11.24682100 /41504900 Email (ACCCRN Focal point): divyas@teri.res.in
