Urban planning and design for building neighborhood resilience to climate change

Abstract

The aim of the paper was to present the procedure of building neighborhood resilience to climate threats, embedded in planning (from the strategic to local level) and design process and focused on usage of natural adaptive potential. The presented approach encompasses: (1) the strategic identification of focal areas in terms of climate adaptation needs, (2) comprehensive diagnosis of local ecological vulnerability and natural adaptive potential to build adaptive capacity, and (3) incorporation of natural adaptive potential through an identified set of planning and design tools. For diagnosis and strategic environmental impact assessment, the multicriteria analysis has been elaborated. The described procedure is applied to the City of Warsaw on the strategic level, by elaboration of the ranking of districts in terms of priority to take adaptation actions based on climatic threats, demographic vulnerability, and assessment of Warsaw Green Infrastructure potential. For further analysis at the planning and design stage, the district with the most urgent adaptation needs has been chosen, and within its borders, two neighborhoods (existing and planned one) with diagnosed ecological sensitivity were selected. Both case studies were analyzed in terms of environmental conditions, urban structure, and planning provisions. It enabled identification of existing natural adaptive potential and assessment of its use. As a result, propositions for enhancing neighborhood resilience to climate change were suggested.