Resilience, Climate Change and Adaptation

Abstract

In Germany and other European countries, the sustainable development of cities and regions is steadily discussed in relation to the concept of resilience (BIRKMANN et al. 2013), especially with regard to the ongoing global climate change. Impacts on human and natural systems resulting from the worldwide climate change are less and less neglectable (IPCC 2014, 2-4). To reduce the vulnerability of biological systems, to protect communities and to strengthen the resilience of the economy, adaptation strategies were developed and set in place on several spatial levels (e.g. from a European perspective to regional approaches to urban adaptation strategies). The focus of adaptation strategies is on more planned and proactive means of adaptation, dealing with a reduction of vulnerability of ecological-social-economic systems to the impact of climate change (S MIT et al. 1999, 200-202). Of course, this adaptive perspective on cities and regions is also crucial for other policy fields, as the germinal question for cities is to what extent and by which strategies they can increase their resistance successfully - with regard to the ecological capacities of cities, to the backdrop of the financial scarcity of public budgets, to high refugee numbers searching for shelter in cities and so on.