URBAN FUTURES * * * * * * * * * * * Urbanization, Climate Risks and Uncertainties 2014 NCAR Uncertainties in Climate Research An Integrated Approach Paty Romero Lankao

Goal 1.Motivation 2.Research on urban areas, urbanization and risk to explore (un)certainties a)Urbanization and urban areas b)Scale Shanghai Mexico City 2012 Beijing geographyblog.eu

Urban Risk and Vulnerability Capacity Romero-Lankao, Hughes, Rosas, Qin, Borquez, Lampis (2014)

1. Why urbanization, urban areas and risk? Motivation Research focus on – Exposure, vulnerability neglected – Negative impacts of urbanization Different definitions of urbanization and urban areas – Limit our understanding of current/future differences in urban risk across and within countries

Rooted in place context, Urbanization: shifts in Economic dynamics and capital accumulation Demographics Culture and political influence Built environment and infrastructure Changes in ecosystem services and functions No standardized definition of urban areas Politico-administrative boundaries Built-environment lay out (urban form) Economic, mobility, informational and operational connections (urban function) Socio-institutional, ecological and built-environment systems

What do we know about urbanization and urban areas? 1.Scale A five-fold increase of urban populations ( ) In 2003, 3 billion urban dwellers; by 2030, 5 billion Romero-Lankao and Gnatz: 2011

2.Rate In 1950 we had 75 cities of 1-5 million people In 2011, 447 By 2020, 527 Romero-Lankao and Gnatz: 2011

3.Location Currently most urbanization is happening in Asia/Pacific and Africa Small and medium cities Challenges and opportunities Romero Lankao and Gnatz (2011) Data UN (2009) countries own reporting Urban population projections, by region (2010–2020)

Built-environment, infrastructure Across and within countries Within urban areas Across and within countries Within urban areas Some stabilizing, while others follow different development trajectories Romero-Lankao, Gurney, Seto et al., 2014 What are we uncertain about? Recent and future Variations in urban form (risk-scapes) Variations in urbanization and development paths

Why scale? Urban vulnerability and risk vary – With the spatial, temporal, or analytical dimension used by scholars – Across urban households, neighborhoods and cities – Scale can influence a study’s findings (uncertainties) Mexico City (Photo by Romero-Lankao)

Dynamics of urbanization shape risk (regional to global) 1.Not only exposure but also sensitivity and capacity  Urbanization and economic indicators to cluster countries  Cross-correlation of clusters with national-level normalized sub- indices of hazard exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity (World Risk Index 2012 ) 2.Not only levels but also rates of urbanization influence vulnerability Country groups Source: Garschagen and Romero-Lankao 2013 Climatic Change Exposure Sensitivity Lack of Adaptive capacity

Mexico: Risks and Challenges to urban adaptation across urban areas Data  Hazard exposure  Floods, droughts, storms…  (Desinventar database)  Socio-demographic micro- census (12 million people)  Education, income, employment, age, gender,..  Access to infrastructure  Municipalities spatially aggregated into urban areas Methods  Ordered Weighted Averaging to aggregate  Hazard exposure index  Vulnerability index  Plotting of each urban area in a two-dimensional space  Y-Axis = hazard exposure  X-Axis = vulnerability  Construction of single metric of risk  Data Envelopment Analysis

Preliminary results

Vulnerabiliby/Capacity and Adaptation vary across scale (Bogota, Buenos Aires, Mexico & Santiago) Romero-Lankao (NCAR), Hughes (EPA), Hardoy (IIED), Qin (Missouri), Rosas-Huerta (UAM), Bórquez (Chile), Lampis (U. Colombia) (2014) Note: blue= determinants of vulnerability/adaptation capacity black = actual adaptation actions

Informality shapes exposure, capacity and actual responses Wealthy forms of growth, – enjoy state sanction – receive infrastructural protections (in detriment of poor neighborhoods) Households in “illegal neighborhoods” – Low, precarious income and benefits (buffers vs. hazards) – Informal tenure of land and housing Prevents from accessing credit lines and insurance, stigmatizes Households with legally acknowledged ownership tend to invest more in home improvements Buenos Aires

Uncertainty related to  Research questions we ask  Methods and data we use  Scale: spatial, temporal, or analytical dimension of analysis