Speaker
Description
Urban areas are expected to accommodate more than two-thirds of the global population by 2050. This necessitates climate protection and adaptation strategies to ensure their long-term resilience and sustainability. Despite the need for a holistic approach to urban infrastructures in municipal governance, current literature and practice often lack an integrated perspective on these systems, which are essential components of public services. Public urban infrastructures—encompassing social, technical, and blue-green categories—require interdisciplinary strategies for climate protection and adaptation to address the diverse challenges they face. This research aims to explore the characteristics of urban infrastructures concerning municipal governance for climate protection and adaptation, emphasizing their complexity, interconnectivity, and varying needs across their lifespan. This is complemented by assessing the contribution of three theoretical approaches – the Long-term Governance Framework, the Multi-level Perspective and Change Management – to long-term climate protection and adaptation in public urban infrastructures. Initially, a literature review was carried out to identify multiple areas of adjustment in municipal governance throughout the lifespan of an urban infrastructure. This iterative lifespan includes the setting of a vision, planning and implementation as well as the monitoring and evaluation of urban infrastructures. This review was complemented by a workshop with scientific experts whose backgrounds cover a range of diverse public urban infrastructures. The areas of adjustment identified are the availability of resources, evolving requirements, changing expectations, a multiplicity of responsibilities, path dependencies, conflicting objectives, the ensuring of justice as well as care and maintenance. Due to the diversity of the identified areas of adjustment, there is not one theory which is able to provide a solution or approach for all of them. However, each area of adjustment which was identified can be matched with respective elements of at least one of the three theoretical approaches included in this study. The findings of this research indicate possible attempts, derived from different theoretical concepts, to handle various areas of adjustment in municipal governance throughout the lifespan of an urban infrastructure regarding climate protection and adaptation. A first exemplary implementation of this approach is demonstrated for the municipal heating transition. Among others, it includes attempts of enhanced stakeholder collaboration and inclusive multi-level governance. Additional implementations can be assessed in following case studies for further urban infrastructures. This study contributes to the foundation for comprehensive decision-making frameworks supporting climate action in urban contexts.
References
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| Keywords | Governance; Multi-level Perspective; Change Management; Infrastructure; Adaptation |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
