Urban Infrastructure and Adaptation

1. Urban Infrastructure and Adaptation Peter Hayes November 21, 2008

2. City Basics Roughly 75 percent of human greenhouse gas emissions originate in cities; today, cities that have signed up to ICLEI’s city climate action program account for about 15 percent of these emissions. Or do they? World Bank uses this figure; but can’t cite a source, except for the IEA. But the IEA say the figure 75 percent relates to only C02 emissions. IIED say the figure is actually more like 40 percent of all GHGs from cities No IPPC city assessment to date Cities are not players at COP Whatever their precise emissions, about half of the world’s population—about 3.4 billion people—live in cities, they are also the site where climate impacts, direct and indirect, will affect most people on the planet, and where at least half of the adaptation to these impacts must take place. D. Hoornweg, Cities and Climate Change, the World Bank Perspective,” unpublished presentation, Bellagio, October 2, 2008; D. Satterwhaite, cited in “Climate Change - Cities Are The Solution, Not The Problem,” September 26, 2008, http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/climate_change_cities_are_the_solution_not_the_problem

3. Coastal Cities Vulnerable • Most cities are largely unprepared to respond and adapt to climate change. To date, relatively few cities have investigated locale-specific biophysical impacts in any depth or at scales and time frames salient to current land use and planning activities. • A survey by the Sydney Coastal Councils Group, for example, found that less than 30 percent of councilsrefer to climate change in planning and management policies, had assessed climate risk or developed hazard mitigation strategies, and more than 60 percent had no plans to do so. • Cities located in the coastal zones that are below 10 meters above sea level is a small fraction of the world’s land area, but are inhabited by roughly 10 percent of the world’s population, or about 600 million people, and an even higher fraction of its total urban population.

4. Built Environment • Increased likelihood of building subsidence on clay soils • Increased ground movement in winter affecting underground pipes and cables • Reduced comfort and productivity of workers Transport • Increased disruption to transport systems by extreme weather • Higher temperatures and reduced passenger comfort on public transport • Damage to infrastructure through buckled rails and rutted roads • Reduction in cold weather-related disruption Business and Finance • Increased exposure of insurance industry to extreme weather claims • Increased cost and difficulty for households and business of obtaining flood insurance cover • Risk management may provide significant business opportunity Tourism and Lifestyle • Increased temperatures could attract more visitors to coastal cities • High temperatures encourage residents to leave cities for more frequent holidays or breaks • Outdoor living, dining and entertainment may be more favoured • Green and open spaces will be used more intensively ________________________________________________________________________________________________ After R. Wilby, “A Review of Climate Change Impacts on the Built Environment,” Built Environment, 33: 1, 2007, p. 34, based on London Climate Change Partnership 2002 study cited by Wilby. Table: Potential Climate Change Impacts On Cities Higher Temperatures • Intensified urban heat island, especially during summer nights • Increased demand for cooling (and thus electricity) in summer • Reduced demand for space heating in winter Flooding • More frequent and intense winter rainfalls leading to riverine flooding and overwhelming of urban drainage systems • Rising sea levels, storminess and tidal surges require more barriers, retreat, or damages Water Resources • Heightened water demand in hot, dry summers • Reduced soil moisture and groundwater replenishment • River flows higher in winter and lower in summer • Water quality problems in summer associated with increased water temperatures and discharges from storm water outflows Health • Poorer air quality affects asthmatics and causes damage to plants and buildings • Higher mortality rates in summer due to heat stress • Lower mortality rates in winter due to reduction in cold spells Biodiversity • Increased competition from exotic species, spread of disease and pests, affecting both fauna and flora • Rare saltmarsh habitats threatened by sea level rise • Increased summer droughts cause stress to wetlands and beech woodlands • Earlier springs and longer frost-free season affect dates of bird egg-laying, leaf emergence and flowering of plants

5. Infrastructure Interdependence • Inter-network failures: city-wide level (and higher), networked infrastructure (telecom-energy-transport-first responders-health system) may experience cascading failures at critical inter-dependencies between these networks such that one network may bring down linked networks. • Urban risk of concatenated hazards where a primary hazard leads to secondary hazard (e.g. floods creating water-supply contamination), as well as where natural hazards trigger technological disasters. • Climate change impacts could trigger such chains of events in interconnected networks, or amplify downstream-wind concatenations.

6. Infrastructure and climate change, risk assessment for VictoriaReport to Victorian Government March 2007 (CSIRO, Maunsell) • Executive Summary 1 • 1.0 Introduction 4 • 2.0 Likely Future Climate Change 7 • 3.0 Infrastructure Risk Assessment 15 • 4.0 Governance Implications 25 • 5.0 Water Infrastructure Risk Assessment 31 • 6.0 Power Infrastructure Risk Assessment 39 • 7.0 Telecommunications Infrastructure Risk Assessment 49 • 8.0 Transport Infrastructure Risk Assessment 53 • 9.0 Buildings Infrastructure Risk Assessment 61 • 10.0 Climate Change Impacts on Infrastructure Adaptation Framework

7. “Hard” Infrastructure and climate change, risk assessment for VictoriaReport to Victorian Government March 2007 (CSIRO, Maunsell) • Water - Water - Storage reservoirs, waterways and irrigation channels - Sewer - Reticulated sewage systems, trunk sewers and treatment plants - Stormwater - Drainage assets and land prone to flood • Power - Electricity - Power generation and transmission to substations includes power supply peak demand - Gas and Oil - Extraction, refining and distribution networks • Telecommunications - Fixed Line Network - Trunk lines to exchanges - Mobile Network - Transmission towers • Transport - Roads - Main and municipal roads - Rail - All networks - Tunnels - All transport tunnels - Bridges - All transport bridges - Airports - All airports - Ports - All jetties, piers and seawall protection • Buildings - Buildings and Structures - All residential, commercial, industrial buildings and storage structures - Urban Facilities -

11. Bushfires put a state in meltdown The Australian January 17, 2007 12:00am • VICTORIANS face days of power bans - including being forced to turn off airconditioners in heatwave conditions - after the state was plunged into chaos yesterday when bushfires cut the main electricity transmission line between Melbourne and New South Wales. • The shutdown triggered blackouts across the state that left more than half a million homes and businesses without electricity, blanked out 1200 traffic lights and disrupted train services.

13. Soft Infrastructure • First Responders (fire, ambulance-hospitals, police) • Educational system • Professional associations • Community groups Foresight activities and anticipatory networks

14. Australian Adaptation Research Networks • The research investment by the Department of Climate Change will focus upon strengthening adaptation research institutional capacity and upon investment in priority research tasks. The $50 million investment is being structured with 3 prime components: • up to $10 million to establish and manage a new Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (hosted by Griffith University);  • up to $30 million for specific research projects to support implementation of the National Adaptation Research Plans (see Section 1.3 below); and • up to $10 million to support the activities of Adaptation Research Networks (as outlined in these guidelines).

15. Australian Adaptation Research themes:  • Terrestrial biodiversity: encompassing species- and ecosystem-level impacts of climate change and system adaptive capacities; and implications for biodiversity management strategies • Primary industries: encompassing systemic and industrial-scale impacts of climate change on horticulture, viticulture, livestock, cropping, intensive and extensive farming practices, forestry; the associated social and economic impacts; and sector- and region-specific adaptation strategies • Water resources and freshwater biodiversity: encompassing the impacts of climate change on surface and groundwater inland aquatic and semi-aquatic ecosystems; the associated social and economic impacts of changed water regimes; and potential adaptation strategies • Marine biodiversity and resources: encompassingthe biophysical impacts of climate change and climate variability on coastal, estuarine and marine ecosystems, including fisheries, and their associated social and economic impacts and implications for management strategies • Human health: includingchanges to the entry, range and persistence of vector- and food-borne diseases; the physical and mental health  impacts of heat waves and other extreme events; and the social economic and management implications of these impacts for the Australian health care system and health services • Settlements and infrastructure: coveringthe impacts of climate change on coastalsettlements; public and private infrastructure including building and facility design and construction; urban water security; flooding and stormwater overflow; the social, economic and institutional implications of these impacts and implications for planning, design, and management and design of settlements and infrastructure • Disaster management and emergency services: implications of changes in frequency and intensity of extreme weather events for disaster mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. • Social, economic and institutional dimensions: Cross-cutting analysis of issues such as methods for understanding whole-of-economy impacts; affect of  social and economic trends on vulnerability to climate change; understanding and developing adaptation strategies for vulnerable communities, especially indigenous and remote communities; and institutional challenges in adapting to climate change

16. Australian Adaptation Research infrastructure and settlements Five sub-themes for research on infrastructure and settlements adaptation specified by the Facility in this theme include:  Network Host: University of NSW • Impacts of climate change on coastalsettlements • Public and private infrastructure including building, facility design and construction; • Urban water security; • Flooding and storm-water overflow; • The social, economic and institutional implications of these impacts and implications for planning, design, and management of settlements and infrastructure

17. Key Research Players • CSIRO Adaptation Flagship • Griffith University Adaptation Research Facility • National University networks…UNSW, RMIT-CCAP, UniSA-ATN, U-Melb • End users • Victorian Government, Department of Planning and Community Development, • Victorian Government, Department of Sustainability and Environment, • Melbourne City Council, • Committee for Melbourne, • Sydney Coastal Councils, • CSIRO Climate Adaptation National Research Flagship • ARUP Australia (international engineering and design company), • Cricket Australia, • National Seachange Taskforce, • Westernport Greenhouse Alliance, • National Planning Institute of Australia, • Melbourne Water, • Municipal Association of Victoria, • Public Health Association of Australia, • Coastal Zone Asia Pacific Association, • CH2M HILL, • Water Services Association of Australia.

18. http://www.secureaustralia.org/ • The Research Network for a Secure Australia (RNSA) is a multi-disciplinary collaboration established to strengthen Australia's research capacity for protecting critical infrastructure (CIP) from natural or human caused disasters including terrorist acts. • Sep 2008 workshop on Climate Change-Infrastructure Adaptation Wiki (CCIA Wiki) The CCIA Wiki will allow users to identify detailed engineering information and sources, and use this information to produce detailed impact assessments and evidence-based cost benefit analysis for adaptation. Specifically, it will provide an easily searchable and cross-referenced list of publications, references, information, definitions etc relevant to different: • infrastructure sectors (eg railway) • climate change variables (eg impact of solar radiation) • infrastructure element (eg above ground cable degradation under increased solar radiation) www.climatechange-infrastructure.org/wiki1

19. Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering Assessment of Impacts of Climate Change on Australia's Physical Infrastructure (November 2008) “Given the complexity of the issues involved, and the imperative for national coordination, and as a further development of the “National Climate Change Adaptation Framework”, there is an urgent need to establish national guidelines for the evaluation, design and planning of infrastructure subject to the effects of climate change. These guidelines would represent appropriate policy solutions to climate change adaptation by considering the expected consequences of climate change and would be assessed within a risk assessment framework. Due consideration should be given to financial, legal, social, environmental and emergency management matters.” At http://www.atse.org.au/?sectionid=128

20. Unitary Urban Systems Systems modelling—eg H.T. Odum, emergetics, later industrial metabolism school

21. Polycentric, De-Centered Cities • Due to fracturing and splintering of “unitary cities” based on urban planning and engineering of largely publicly owned or regulated integrated infrastructure that offered (more or less) universal access to these public goods. • Instead, many cities have been exposed to global economic forces that led to the liberalization of regulated infrastructure supply combined with new technology have in turn resulted in the local unbundling of integrated networks and their simultaneous integration at a global level in networks that span dozens of cities. Source: S. Graham, S. Marvin, splintering urbanism, networked infrastructure, technological mobilities, and the urban condition,Routledge, London, 2001, pp. 44-45.

22. Global Cities—new landscape • Global urban network of networks, a transnational meta-city • Shifts --natural monopoly to competitive or unregulated oligopolistic supply of infrastructure --unbundling of integrated networks to distributed supply infrastructure tailored to individual demand, with increased range and quality of infrastructural services for those able and willing to pay --expanded infrastructure demand side management options; and reduced infrastructure costs for those able to connect.

23. Segmentation of Urban Populations • many users were unable to afford access on the new terms or paid very high unit prices for infrastructure services; or were disconnected due to inability to pay. • many households and communities were bypassed either locally, glocally, or virtually • cities became multiplexed in form or put simply, incoherent. • cities also became subject to catastrophic system failure (for example, Wellington’s power crisis). Conclusion: many cities are no longer solely contiguous with a specific geographical site and levers of urban planning and control over decisions relating to or affected by climate change may be very limited

24. Social Vulnerability vs Climate Hazard “In Indian cities, vulnerability has typically contributed to overall risk more than hazard exposure has. The most vulnerable urban residents are the poor, slum and squatter settlement dwellers, and those who suffer insecurities. These insecurities arise from: poor governance; the lack of investment in infrastructure and in the commons; and strong connections between the political class, real estate developers and public agencies.” A. Revi, 'Climate change risk: an Adaptation and Mitigation Agenda for Indian Cities', Environment and Urbanization 20 (1), April 2008

25. History Matters, Institutions Matter For example: Coastal city exposure to climate risk co-evolved with non-climate drivers of location of coastal cities: --historical (water-borne logistics, colonial beachheads and metropoles, poor planning, ineffective urban governance, information failures) --contemporary competitive drive for cities to gain economically from globalized service networks in financing, investment, consulting and trading networks and the locational choices of global corporations. In many instances, the combined exposure to absolute sea level rise is combined with groundwater extraction that results in subsidence and relative sea level rise on which global climatically-induced absolute sea-level rise is super-imposed. Thus, climate change is only part of the story. Source: D. Satterthwaite et al, Building Climate Change Resilience in Urban Areas and among Urban Populations in Low- and Middle-income Nations, prepared for the Rockefeller Foundation’s Global Urban Summit, Innovations for an Urban World, in Bellagio in July 2007, p. 3; and published as: Adapting to Climate Change in Urban Areas The possibilities and constraints in low- and middle-income nations, Human Settlements Discussion Paper Series, online at: http://www.iied.org/HS/topics/accc.html.

26. Multiple Stressors, Multiple Jeopardies The IPCC has used the concept of multiple stressor to show how a biological or physical asset may be stressed simultaneously by climate change and some other source of stress. For example, forests may be stressed by climate induced ecological succession and by acid rain In urban contexts, the poor are affected by the displacement and structural adjustment affects of integration into the global economic system as well as to the extractive behaviors of local political and economic elites and predatory practices. Climate change risks are superimposed on their pre-existing vulnerability due to these social factors. I prefer to label these combined and overlapping risks that arise from human institutions “multiple jeopardies” to distinguish them from multiple stressors that typically apply to biological and physical risks or ecological degradation.

27. Urban Poor and Climate Adaptation • Within this urban population, a large fraction, often the majority, live in more or less extreme poverty. The category “poor” is a diverse group with respect to the poverty line, and may be always or usually poor, that is, chronically poor; or constantly or occasionally (transiently) poor. • In the low and middle income world, about 0.9 billion urbanites live in poverty according to UN Habitat estimates (national statistical shortfalls make a more precise estimate impossible), of whom about 0.65 billion lack adequate water and 0.8 billion lack adequate sanitation. Categories are from Hulme, cited in T. Tanner,R. Mitchell, “Entrenchment or Enhancement: Could Climate Change Adaptation Help to Reduce Chronic Poverty,” IDS Bulletin, 39, 4, September 2008, p.8. Estimates are from D. Dodman and D. Satterthwaite, “Institutional Capacity, Climate Change Adaptation and the Urban Poor,” IDS Bulletin, 39, 4, September 2008, p. 67.

28. Urban Poor are Disproportionately Vulnerable Direct climate impacts on urban poor include: • direct impacts such as more frequent and more hazardous floods… • less direct impacts such as the reduced availability of freshwater supplies available to poorer groups • indirect impacts such as climate change-related weather events that increase food prices or damage poorer households’ asset bases. To which they are more vulnerable because of • greater exposure to hazards (e.g. through living in makeshift housing on unsafe sites) • lack of hazard-reducing infrastructure (e.g. drainage systems, roads allowing emergency vehicle access) • less adaptive capacity (e.g. the ability to move to better quality housing or less dangerous sites) • less state provision for assistance in the event of a disaster (indeed, state action may increase exposure to hazards by limiting access to safe sites for housing) • less legal and financial protection (e.g. a lack of legal tenure for housing sites, lack of assets, and insurance • Less assets • Less income diversification options

29. Bypassed, Collapsed, Isolated Cities: • In many countries, many small and intermediate cities have been bypassed altogether by these global circuits and in some cases, collapsed (for example, Mogadishu). • Other cities have developed giant informal settlements that lack official means of governance or any local government and are subject not only to outright wars and high levels of insecurity, but to migrant inflows and inflows on a massive scale. Not only is basic infrastructure non-existent or vastly undersupplied; but local government is corrupt, opaque, and authoritarian. • With little infrastructure and local institutions that offer more maladaptive than adaptive capacity, it is hard to build climate change resilience in these cities.

30. Cities as “Climate Crucibles” Cities are co-evolving with the climate system, both as a global climate force in their own right as well as becoming powerful independent actors in international affairs on a par with many states. City response to climate change impacts and their endogenous turmoil is a highly turbulent layer where local, bottom-up reactive and pro-active adaptation will churn and interact with global climate change. At the edge of this chaos, we hypothesize, is an enormous amount of social learning and innovation for constructive institutional change.

31. How To Explore this Complexity? • Antithesis of a complex systems approach—is bottom-up agent-based modeling • For example, of port city competition and cooperation and impacts of CCA • Inter-city collaboration for adaptation • The right metaphor for this process is not institutional architecture, but think-nets, small worlds-network theory, immunological “swarming” behavior, and other learning strategies that rely on viral replication for scale and success. • Fortunately, there are many, many examples to choose from in this early learning phase of bottom-up, “emergent” adaptation including the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives, the Clinton Foundation’s C40 Large Cities Climate Leadership Group and Climate Initiative, and others. • Milan example

32. Indonesia-Australia • Tropical cities, sharing and collaboration strategies • Lifeboat cities in extreme worlds • Urban insecurity linkages • Universal needs (eg low grade waste heat desal technologies; green building certification…) • Toolkits: eg adaptive building materials calculator • Municipal mitigation as revenue source separate to central governments • Global framework under “transgovernmental” law? (Anne-Marie Slaughter theory)