Cities, Disaster Risk And Adaptation

"Worldwide, disasters and climate change pose a serious risk to sustainable urban development, resulting in escalating human and economic costs. Consequently, city authorities and other urban actors face the challenge of integrating risk reduction an d adaptation strategies into their work. However, related knowledge and expertise are still scarce and fragmented. ""Cities, Disaster Risk and Adaptation ""explores ways in which resilient cities can be built and sustainable urban transformations a chie ved. The book provides a comprehensive understanding of urban risk reduction and adaptation planning, exploring key theoretical concepts and analysing the complex interrelations between cities, disasters and climate change. Furthermore, it provi des a n overview of current risk reduction and adaptation approaches taken by both city authorities and city dwellers from diverse contexts in low, middle and high income nations. Finally, the book offers a planning framework for reducing and adaptin g to r isk in urban areas by expanding on pre-existing positive actions and addressing current shortfalls in theory and practice. The importance of a distributed urban governance system, in which institutions and citizens adaptive capacities can supp ort and complement each other, is highlighted. This book takes a holistic approach it integrates perspectives and practice from risk reduction and climate change adaptation based on a specific urban viewpoint. The text is richly supplemented with boxed ca se studies written by renowned academics and practitioners in the field and test yourself scenarios that integrate theory into practice. Each chapter contains learning objectives, end of chapter questions, suggested further reading and web r esources, as well as a wealth of tables and figures. This book is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of geography, urban studies and planning, architecture, environmental studies, international development, sociology and s ustainabil"