Urban vulnerability and resilience within the context of climate change

• Main Authors: E. Tromeur, R. Ménard, J.-B. Bailly, C. Soulié
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2012-05-01
• Series: Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences
• Online Access: http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/12/1811/2012/nhess-12-1811-2012.pdf

Natural hazards, due to climate change, are particularly damaging in urban areas because of interdependencies of their networks. So, urban resilience has to face up to climate risks. The most impacting phenomenon is the urban heat island (UHI) effect. The storage capacity of heat is depending on shapes of buildings, public spaces, spatial organization, transport or even industrial activities. So, adaptive strategies for improving urban climate could be possible in different ways. In the framework of the French project Resilis, this study characterises urban vulnerability and resilience in terms of energy needs of buildings and outside urban comfort according to the IPCC carbon dioxide emission scenarios B2 and A2 for the period 2050–2100 for 10 French cities. The evolutions of four climate indicators in terms of heating and cooling needs and number of hours when the temperature is above 28 °C are then obtained for each city to analyse climate risks and their impacts in urban environment.