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The need to respond to increasing flood risk, climate change, and rapid urban development has shaped innovative policies and practices of spatial planning in many countries over recent decades. As an instrumental–technical intervention, planning is mainly used to improve the physical environment (through concepts such as regulating waterproof facades of architecture, setting buffering zones, and designing green–blue corridors). However, the implementation of the proposed physical interventions is often challenging and necessitates assistance from practices such as climate assessment, policy disciplines, civil societies, and economic resources. These extensive perspectives have spawned many new research domains in the realm of spatial planning. This paper provides a review of the recent developments in flood resilience, risk management, and climate adaptation; based on this, it positions planning research and practice within these works of literature. Four clusters of thought are identified, mainly in the European and American scholarship of the last two decades. They are environmental concerns, disaster management concerns, socio-economic concerns, and institutional concerns. Current planning research concentrates on disaster management in the underlying belief that planning is functionally efficient. The attention to environmental concerns, socio-economic concerns, and institutional concerns of planning research remains insufficient but has been growing. This, in turn, enlarges the scope of planning research and indicates future directions for study. These new concerns relate to spatial planning’s ability to operate effectively in a multi-sectoral setting, despite limited resources and in the face of uncertain risk.
Meng Meng; Marcin Dabrowski; Dominic Stead. Enhancing Flood Resilience and Climate Adaptation: The State of the Art and New Directions for Spatial Planning. Sustainability 2020, 12, 7864 .
AMA StyleMeng Meng, Marcin Dabrowski, Dominic Stead. Enhancing Flood Resilience and Climate Adaptation: The State of the Art and New Directions for Spatial Planning. Sustainability. 2020; 12 (19):7864.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMeng Meng; Marcin Dabrowski; Dominic Stead. 2020. "Enhancing Flood Resilience and Climate Adaptation: The State of the Art and New Directions for Spatial Planning." Sustainability 12, no. 19: 7864.
The paper examines the development of different spatial plans to address flood resilience in the Chinese city of Guangzhou, one of the most vulnerable cities to flooding and climate change. The analysis focuses on the differences in planning procedures and planning mandates (determined by different plans in authority) before and after the launch of the Sponge City Plan which calls for numerous spatial resilience measures to address the increasing flood risk. The analysis reveals that the introduction of the Sponge City Plan has changed the role of planning from onlooker to active participant in the arena of flood governance. In addition, new plans combine long-term strategic visions, soft principles, and strict regulations with an aim to promote concrete planning practice between multiple layers with a clear mandate. Despite these shifts, institutional and territorial challenges remain.
Meng Meng; Marcin Dąbrowski; Dominic Stead. Shifts in Spatial Plans for Flood Resilience and Climate Adaptation: Examining Planning Procedure and Planning Mandates. Sustainability 2019, 12, 105 .
AMA StyleMeng Meng, Marcin Dąbrowski, Dominic Stead. Shifts in Spatial Plans for Flood Resilience and Climate Adaptation: Examining Planning Procedure and Planning Mandates. Sustainability. 2019; 12 (1):105.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMeng Meng; Marcin Dąbrowski; Dominic Stead. 2019. "Shifts in Spatial Plans for Flood Resilience and Climate Adaptation: Examining Planning Procedure and Planning Mandates." Sustainability 12, no. 1: 105.
Integration of flood risk in spatial planning is increasingly seen as a way to enhance cities’ resilience to the growing flood hazards, albeit its operationalisation remains challenging. This study aims to explain the reasons for this difficulty through the case study of Guangzhou, a Chinese delta city that is highly vulnerable to coastal, fluvial and pluvial flooding, particularly in the context of a changing climate and rapid expansion of the urban fabric. It does so by investigating the recognition of flood risk in spatial planning and vice-versa, of spatial issues in the flood risk management field, using framing analysis. The paper reveals that the integration of flood risk concerns in spatial planning in Guangzhou remains an emerging process, gradually shifting from informal to formal activities grounded in legislation. This happens through percolation of framing discourse from the flood risk management policy to spatial planning, leading to changes in problem setting, action scripts and the prescribed governance arrangements in the planning discourse. The vagueness of governance arrangements, however, undermines the integration of flood risk management in spatial planning.
Meng Meng; Marcin Dąbrowski; Yuting Tai; Dominic Stead; Faith Chan. Collaborative spatial planning in the face of flood risk in delta cities: A policy framing perspective. Environmental Science & Policy 2019, 96, 95 -104.
AMA StyleMeng Meng, Marcin Dąbrowski, Yuting Tai, Dominic Stead, Faith Chan. Collaborative spatial planning in the face of flood risk in delta cities: A policy framing perspective. Environmental Science & Policy. 2019; 96 ():95-104.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMeng Meng; Marcin Dąbrowski; Yuting Tai; Dominic Stead; Faith Chan. 2019. "Collaborative spatial planning in the face of flood risk in delta cities: A policy framing perspective." Environmental Science & Policy 96, no. : 95-104.