Climatic Change, the Built Environment, and Urban Resilience: Global Insights and Nigerian Perspectives

Abstract

Climate change presents an escalating global threat to ecosystems, economies, and human settlements. The built environment encompassing buildings, neighborhoods, and infrastructure both contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions and remains among the most vulnerable sectors to climate-related disruptions. In Nigeria, rural areas experience increasing drought, desertification, and food insecurity, while urban centers face challenges such as rising temperatures, water scarcity, flooding, and sea-level rise. This paper adopts a literature-based analytical approach to explore how architecture can serve as a critical tool for climate adaptation and urban resilience. International and local case studies were examined, including Rotterdam’s floating architecture in the Netherlands, which demonstrates how innovative design responds to rising water levels, and the Makoko Floating School in Lagos, which exemplifies community-driven adaptation in a low-resource context. Findings indicate that climate change alters the built environment through intensified heatwaves, flooding, and structural degradation, with unregulated urbanization amplifying exposure. Adaptation strategies such as resilient design, green infrastructure, modular construction, and water-sensitive urban planning are essential to safeguard cities. Complementary mitigation strategies emphasizing low-carbon materials, passive design, and urban vegetation further reduce environmental impact. Both high-technology approaches in developed contexts and low-cost innovations in developing regions provide replicable pathways toward resilience. In conclusion, architecture plays a pivotal role in addressing climate change through sustainable design and planning. While Nigeria’s progress in climate-responsive architecture remains limited by high construction costs and weak regulatory enforcement, these barriers can be overcome by strengthening building codes, investing in resilient infrastructure, promoting sustainable materials, improving climate data collection, and enhancing institutional and community capacity for adaptation.