Climate change adaptation in coastal cities of developing countries: characterizing types of vulnerability and adaptatio

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Climate change adaptation in coastal cities of developing countries: characterizing types of vulnerability and adaptation options Tu Dam Ngoc Le 1,2 Received: 13 February 2019 / Accepted: 2 September 2019/ # Springer Nature B.V. 2019

Abstract Facing the increasingly adverse impacts of climate change, many coastal cities in developing and least-developed countries have shaped their climate adaptation plan. This study aims to unpack the state-of-the-art municipal adaptation planning in developing countries. The paper seeks to understand the types of vulnerability and explore planned adaptation options through a content analysis of adaptation planning documents in 45 selected coastal cities in developing countries. The result shows the complexity of vulnerabilities that are not only climate change impacts, but more importantly, the socio-economic sensitivity, the insufficient infrastructure system, and limited adaptive capacity. Adaptation responses, correspondingly, address primarily current vulnerabilities rather than future climate change impacts. Local climate change adaptation in developing countries, therefore, cannot separate from socio-economic development and capacity enhancement. A coordination mechanism for inter-policy is necessary to manage the trade-offs between multiple priorities. Keywords Climate change . Coastal cities . Developing countries . Vulnerabilities . Adaptation options

1 Introduction Climate change is likely unavoidable even with proactive practices in emission reduction. Although governments have committed to limiting global warming to 1.5 °C, the potential impacts of and the risks associated with climate change are still very high (Masson-Delmotte et al. 2018). Local communities, the first responders, will need adaptation actions to alleviate Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-01909888-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

* Tu Dam Ngoc Le [email protected]

1

Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14214, USA

2

Faculty of Architecture, Mien Trung University of Civil Engineering, Tuy Hoa, Phu Yen, Vietnam

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change

these impacts and risks. Many local municipalities have conducted adaptation planning to assess current and future vulnerabilities, potential climate change impacts, and identify actions to adapt to variability in the future. Tracking the practices of climate change adaptation (CCA) planning is necessary to offer interactive lessons between theory and practices. These studies, as reported in the literature, are primarily focused on developed countries (for instance, Baker et al. 2012; Baynham and Stevens 2014; Tang et al. 2010; Woodruff and Stults 2016) but few on developing and least-developed countries. Local climate adaptation planning in developing countries was initiated relatively early with the city of Cape Town in 2006 (Mukheibir and Ziervogel 2007), the locally rooted adap