Policy Brief 3 Climate Resilience in Built Environment
Urban Climate Change Resilience
POLICY BRIEF
3
KEY MESSAGES
Climate Resilience in the Built Environment
Climate change impacts affect multiple sectors and at varying scales.
n
Introducing a climate resilience agenda to the urban planning and development paradigm would help
integrate this new challenge with the overall development vision of the cities in India.
n
Need to sensitize and amend regulations and institutions and find ways for institutional coordination and
integration to achieve this.
n
Overcoming capacity gaps should be addressed through training, capacity building and general awareness
programs targeting multiple stakeholders at various levels.
n
Data management systems have to be developed to base and inform decision making and subsequently
developing resilience strategies.
n
It is also observed that toolkits and guidebooks would prove to be essential and useful means to help cities
develop their resilience plans.
n
Contextualization of available global experiences of resilience planning to suit regional needs is an
essential component of the overall resilience mandate. A larger exercise is therefore needed to be taken up
where various states come together, to review and revise their existing development regulations, guidelines
and bye-laws to bring in climate resilience.
n
UCCR Policy Brief Series
Policy Brief 3
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Urban Climate Change Resilience
POLICY BRIEF
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I
ncreasing urban population and rapid urbanization has led to tremendous pressure on infrastructure and
services over the cities in India. Burgeoning demand for housing and the city's inability to fulfill the same has
led to proliferation of slums. Systemic inefficiencies have led to poor management of city affairs. Urban sprawl has
led to extensive deforestation and change in land use land cover with an increase in the built-up area.
1
VISION FOR CLIMATE RESILIENT CITIES
Climate change and its associated impacts would only add to these challenges. Climate change impacts can wipe
out development gains and would significantly reduce quality of life (Prasad et al, 2009:10).
In case of inaction, climate change impacts would work in two ways:
1. The gradual impacts of climate change like change in pattern of rainfalls and change in temperatures would
anyway force us to either adapt or bear the brunt; for example; responding to diseases and epidemics because
of temperature rise, or water scarcity and urban flooding due to changing rainfall patterns.
2. The climate impacts leading to extreme events like increased instances of cyclones would extend loss of lives,
property, livelihood and infrastructure. Besides leading to huge economic loss, the social costs of these
damages would be huge, particularly to the vulnerable sections like poor, disabled and children.
There is, therefore, a need to understand the implications of climate change, its associated impacts on urban
systems and the vulnerability in terms of vulnerable sectors, hot spots and population. This understanding should
be utilized for future and current planning practices to reduce vulnerability and to steer urban development
towards climate resilience. However, this could only happen when climate considerations are mainstreamed into
the development discourse. This would lead to a holistic rather than sectoral engagement in dealing with the
impacts of climate change. To expedite action and draw early lessons from these actions, there is merit in
mainstreaming climate risk reduction into on-going and planned investment, existing capital stock, and associated
city planning, government and management practices instead of waiting for new large-scale adaptation and
mitigation investments. The following diagram explains the vision of climate resilient cities and possible directions
through which this could be achieved.
UCCR Policy Brief Series
Policy Brief 3
2
Urban Climate Change Resilience
2
POLICY BRIEF
3
CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
Urban development paradigm is steered primarily by extent and manner in which the built environment and
various land uses are housed and planned within the city limits. Climate change will have the potential to
influence the built environment negatively. For example, increase in temperature would lead to enhanced heat
island effect in urban areas. Similarly, change in precipitation levels would lead to increased incidence of flash
floods and water logging in the cities and dampness in buildings. These changes would affect the infrastructure
and services of the city; for example; disturbed water supply due to drought conditions, problems related to
transport due to floods and inundation. The current planning for infrastructure and services does not factor impact
of climate change on the city. The existing infrastructure in most of the cities and towns is inadequate even for
current needs. The degree of impacts of climate change is hence intricately linked to the urban land use choices
that we make today and would have the ability to exacerbate these negative influences if combined with faulty
urban planning practices. Additionally, the impacts of climate change also have strong social consequences as the
poor are the worst hit from these events.
Resilient planning would include preparing urban systems, built
environment and social fabric to withstand these changes and
associated impacts. For example appropriate road pavement design
and urban greening could lead to reduction in the Urban Heat Island
effect. Similarly, adopting principle of inclusive planning and
ascertaining access to insurance would help reduce the social
vulnerability. Gorakhpur and Guwahati are two ACCCRN cities with
flooding and water logging as their perpetual problem. Climate
projections for both the cities show increased intensity of extreme
rainfall events. However, in neither of the cities, the existing bye-laws
address the need for fundamental design changes to respond to the
problem of flooding and waterlogging.
Moreover, damage to settlements, human lives, health, and loss of
livelihood are some of the associated impacts of climate change. In
Surat, the textile industry faces loss of material and livelihoods of its
workers due to floods (TARU, 2011). All these examples have
ascertained the inherent relationship of the built environment, urban
planning and climatic parameters and the urgent need for planned
interventions in this direction. The ACCCRN program has recognized
this and adopted some interventions in the core cities of the program
(highlighted in the table).
In Guwahati, the changing rainfall
patterns have led to increase in the
total volume of rainfall in a day. Since,
most of watershed area and natural
drainage area are now built up, a lot of
waterlogging takes place and the
rainwater does not get drained out
(TERI, 2013).
Increased rainfall intensity in
Gorakhpur and Guwahati per day has
led to a need for designing and laying
of adequate storm water drains. In
Guwahati particularly, the rain water
also carried lot of silt that comes from
the hills that surround the city. Hence,
the design of storm water storms has
to have adequate silt catchments
within the storm water system (TERI,
2013; Shiraz et al, 2010).
Table: Summary of ACCCRN interventions in 3 core cities
City
Climate vulnerability
Gorakhpur
Prolonged water logging together
with poor waste management has
caused an increase in the incidence of
vector borne diseases
Indore
Surat
UCCR Policy Brief Series
Water scarcity is the main threat to
the city of Indore, with the level of
water demand far outstripping the
supply
Flooding, coastal storms and
cyclones, sea level rise and
inundation are major threats to the
port city of Surat
Policy Brief 3
City projects identified and
implemented under ACCCRN
ACCCRN outcomes
City resilience strategy
document
n
Resilience strategy
mainstreaming plan
n
n
n
Implementing and Promoting Ward-level
Micro Resilience Planning
Implementing and Promoting Adaptive
Peri-Urban Agriculture
Testing and promoting decentralized
systems for differential water sources and
uses
n
City resilience strategy
document
Strengthening vector-borne disease
surveillance and response systems
n
City resilience strategy
document
End-to-end Early Warning System
n
Urban Health and Climate Resilience
Center
n
3
Urban Climate Change Resilience
3
POLICY BRIEF
3
INTEGRATION OF RESILIENCE MEASURES IN THE DEVELOPMENT
PLANNING FRAMEWORK
While the pilot projects identified in the core cities
were important in terms of measurability of success
of the initiative, the notion of integration of
resilience measures in the development planning
process in the project cities and later in the larger
policy regulatory framework was understood as an
essential element within the program.
Some of the learning from the exercise in various
ACCCRN cities provides useful insights into the
possible entry points for bringing in resilience
planning in Indian cities. The desired integration
would essentially be a multilevel integration where
international community, research organizations
etc. provide necessary funds, technical support,
capacity support and knowledge base for the city,
while the national and state governments provide
the right kind of policy regulatory and institutional
support. The local government would be essentially
involved in the implementation, monitoring and
feedback stage.
ENTRY POINTS AT NATIONAL LEVEL
Although, urban development is a state subject, the central government contributes to major funding for urban
development and oversees many national level schemes and policies to influence and foster urban development.
1. A policy proposing climate resilience agenda for India's urban centres
The Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) as the nodal agency for urban development planning in India is better
placed to draw up a new policy that proposes a new climate resilience agenda for India's urban centers. The policy
must initiate research, capacity building and data management as its starting point considering the fact that
knowledge about specific climate change related impacts on urban centers is not available and would differ from
city to city. The policy could forward the objectives that are drawn out within the National Mission on Sustainable
Habitat.
2. Integrate climate resilience through flagship schemes of the Government of India
i) JNNURM Phase II: In line with CDPs and city mobility plans prepared under JNNURM, the new phase of
JNNURM could foster preparation of climate resilience strategy within each mission cities as one of the reforms
that the city should comply with. Funds could be allocated under JNNURM towards adaptation planning/ projects
that would emerge from the resilience strategy. These could be funds to generate data, to facilitate city specific
research, and implement short and medium term adaptation projects.
ii) The Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (MoHUPA) is the apex authority to formulate national
level policies. MoHUPA is also the nodal Ministry for implementation of the component on Basic Services to Urban
Poor (BSUP) under JnNURM and the Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) - a scheme that targets provision of low cost housing
to the urban poor. The ACCCRN initiatives have highlighted urban poor as the most vulnerable population due to
climate change due to their marginalized position in society and lack of access to proper housing, and basic
UCCR Policy Brief Series
Policy Brief 3
4
Urban Climate Change Resilience
POLICY BRIEF
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services. Fostering 'climate resilient communities' within these schemes would help in targeting the climate
vulnerable strata of the society and make way for reducing their vulnerabilities. Some of these initiatives have
to be focused around health issues and hence integrated policies with Ministry of Health would be beneficial to
achieve overall objective of reduced vulnerability and increased community resilience.
iii) The elements of the Urban Sanitation Policy and the Service Level Benchmarks could integrate climate
related parameters.
3. Revise and integrate resilience measures through national and state level guidelines
UDPFI guidelines: The Urban Development and Plan Formulation and Implementation (UDPFI) Guidelines are
being used by the ULB or Development Authority for planning at city/zonal/ neighborhood level. The
guidelines are in the process of revision. Since the guidelines ascertain planning details at the level of the city
and neighborhood, the guidelines have a great potential to instigate resilience/adaptation measures. For
example, introduction of Sustainable Urban Drainage System (SUDS), which is a system to manage surface
water runoff in a more sustainable manner, compared to traditional pipes (open/closed) systems (TERI, 2012).
The National Building Code of India (NBC): This comprehensive Building Code is a national instrument
providing guidelines for regulating the building construction activities across the country. It serves as a Model
Code for adoption by all agencies involved in building construction works, for example, the Public Works
Departments (PWD), other government construction departments, local bodies or private construction
agencies. The Code mainly contains administrative regulations, development control rules and general
building requirements stipulations regarding materials, etc. The codes may be amended to bring in certain
specific climate change related parameters that could help guide construction activities.
ENTRY POINTS AT STATE LEVEL
Urban development is a state subject according to The Constitution of India. Any institutionalization at state
level for bringing in climate resilience within the state's agenda could be made through making an
amendment in the existing state level Acts. Besides this, the state level parastatals like: Jal Nigam (Water
Boards), the Public Health and Engineering department (PHED) and The Public Works Department (PWD) are
important institutions that would play a crucial role in restoring services and infrastructure during
emergencies/extreme events. These are also some of the institutions through which the adaptation projects
and actions could be materialized on ground.
ENTRY POINTS AT CITY LEVEL
1. Planning: Till date the Master Plans are the crucial planning documents within the city driven through the
city development authorities or the State Town and Country Planning Offices. Since these are also long term
land use planning documents and also define and ascertain the development regulations and influence the
building bye-laws, these are by far the most important document to be targeted at city level to include climate
resilience. The Gorakhpur mainstreaming strategy and Guwahati resilience strategy calls for inclusion of a
chapter on climate resilience (TERI 2012; TERI 2013) in their respective Master Plans.
2. Influencing Bye-laws and planning norms: Each city has separate building bye-law and planning norms
which frame the development regulations for the city. These Bye-Laws are important tools and should be
guided by climate information to bring in resilient construction and building design parameters into practice.
For instance, in case of revised building byelaws to regulate the construction of buildings under the
jurisdiction of Guwahati Metropolitan Area, specific propositions were given on inclusion of specific energy
efficiency measures on interior and exterior lighting, electrical systems, HVAC systems, integration of
renewable energy systems and specific building envelope recommendations as per the climatic conditions of
the region.
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3. Institutionalization: The municipal corporation as an institution is crucial for implementation of resilience
measures. In Surat, one of the core ACCCRN cities In India, the Municipal Corporation took the initiative for
not only preparing the city resilience strategy but also for institutionalizing the climate resilience agenda by
creating new partnerships and focused centers for addressing specific problems of the city (See Box example
on Surat)
Example from Surat
One of the key achievements of the project in Surat was the formation of the Urban
Health and Climate Resilience Centre (UHCRC) and the Surat Climate Change Trust
(SCCT). The Surat Climate Change Trust (SCCT) is a city level multi-stakeholder public
trust having its office at the City Engineer's Office, SMC. It includes members from
various institutions including Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority, Narmada,
Water Resources and Water Supply Department, South Gujarat Chamber of Commerce
& Industries, Academic Instructions (SVNIT and CSS). It was formulated with the
objective of addressing problems arising out of urbanization and climate change and
to facilitate capacity building of Surat to address these challenges (Surat Climate
Change Trust. 2013. 'About us').
In 2012, SMC with support from the Rockefeller Foundation established a first of a kind
institution in the country - the UHCRC (housed within SMC's Health Department) that
aims to address public health and climate change adaptation issues (ACCCRN, 2012).
SMC has allocated Rs. 10 million to UHCRC for its functioning (Bhat, 2013).
4
OVERCOMING THE INHERENT CHALLENGES – WAY FORWARD
Policy and institutional mandate: ACCCRN experience has shown that a strong policy and mandate at national
and state level is necessary for more and more cities to take up resilience planning exercises. Institutional
mandates are defined by clear objectives and vision for development. Introducing a climate resilience agenda to
the urban planning and development paradigm would help integrate this new challenge with the overall
development vision of the cities in India.
Coordinated action at all levels of government: Experiences from ACCCRN India have highlighted that climate
change impacts affects multiple sectors and at varying scales. The division of authority and institutional set-up at
central, state and city level for climate sensitive sectors like disaster management, water, power etc. could impact
timely coordination and real time decision making (Brown et al, 2012). Hence, there is a strong need for finding
ways for institutional coordination and integration.
This would require a broader consensus and coordinated action at all levels of the government including a clear
definition of institutional roles and responsibilities to achieve the agenda. Ascertaining and introducing climate
resilience into existing regulations and informing/building capacity of related institutions would give an initial head
start.
Capacity building: Considering that there is still a broader lack of awareness about climate change and its
specific impacts on urban systems, there is indeed a need to find ways and means to address this knowledge gap.
The most important step would be to equip the city managers and decision makers alike to appreciate climate
resilience as one of the mandates for urban development planning and build their capacity to implement some of
the reforms, actions and regulatory changes that are being proposed through this policy brief. It is also observed
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Urban Climate Change Resilience
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that toolkits and guidebooks would prove to be essential and useful means to help cities develop their
resilience plans. ACCCRN experience gives two important lessons: i) The urgency to initiate fundamental
changes in planning at all levels with resilience to climate change as the focal point; ii) Intensive action around
implementation for the above plans at all scales. Needless to say, both of these require rigorous training,
capacity building and general awareness and an overwhelming desire to walk the talk.
Data management: Data management systems have to be developed to base and inform decision making and
subsequently developing resilience strategies.
A larger exercise to review and revise: While examples from initiatives like ACCRN and many other parallel
initiatives globally provide extensive insights on the way forward in terms of mainstreaming, yet
contextualization of these experiences to suit regional needs is an essential component of the overall
resilience mandate. A larger exercise is therefore needed to be taken up where various states come together,
to review and revise their existing development regulations, guidelines and bye-laws to bring in climate
resilience. Extensive replication would only be possible when the governance systems and institutional
mechanisms are designed, updated and channelized towards the goal of resilient cities.
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POLICY BRIEF OVERVIEW
Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) is a network of cities in India, Indonesia, Thailand,
Philippines, Bangladesh and Vietnam, experimenting with a range of activities that will collectively improve
the ability of the cities to withstand, to prepare for, and to recover from the projected impacts of climate
change. One of the key intervention focuses to build policy debate around UCCR. Policy makers seek evidencebased guidance as a foundation for decision-making. ACCCRN India partners have been working with cities in
India since 2008 and it highlights sound practices, demonstration projects and interventions on building
resilience to climate change.
It was recognized to tap the knowledge and develop evidence-based Policy Briefs to address the needs of the
decision makers at the level of the national/state and city government on UCCR. In the period 2013-2014,
ACCCRN India is producing a series of UCCR policy guidance briefs. For a complete list of reports, case
studies, policy briefs, please visit www.acccrn.org
References
Anna, Brown., Ashvin, Dayal., and Cristina Rumbaitis Del Rio. 2012. From practice to theory: emerging lessons from Asia
for building urban climate change resilience. Environment and Urbanisation. 24: 531.
Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network, 2012. ACCCRN city projects. The Rockefeller Foundation, Thailand.
Bhatt, H. 8 February 2013. Climate resilience centre to be operational by March. Times of India. Available at:
Neeraj, Prasad., Federica, Ranghieri., Fatima, Shah., Zoe, Trohanis., Earl, Kessler., and Ravi, Sinha., 2009. Climate
Resilient Cities-A Primer on Reducing Vulnerabilities to Disasters. [online] Washington DC: The World Bank. 160pp.
Available at: [Accessed 20
September 2013]
Shiraz A, Wajih., Bijay, Singh., Ekta, Bartarya., Shukla, Basu., and ACCCRN ISET Team. 2010. Towards a Resilient
Gorakhpur. GEAG, Gorakhpur.
Surat Climate Change Trust 2013. About us. Available at:
TERI. 2012. Mainstreaming Climate Resilience in Urban Areas – A case of Gorakhpur City. TERI, New Delhi.
TERI. 2013. Climate Proofing Guwahati, Assam. City Resilience strategy and Mainstreaming Plan (Synthesis Report). TERI,
New Delhi
TARU. 2011. Surat City Resilience Strategy. Available at:
https://acccrn.org/sites/default/files/documents/SuratCityResilienceStrategy_ACCCRN_01Apr2011_small_0.pdf
This Policy Brief is written by: The Energy and Resources Institute, www.teriin.org
Telephone: +91.11.24682100 /41504900
Email (ACCCRN Focal point): divyas@teri.res.in
UCCR Policy Brief Series
Policy Brief 3
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POLICY BRIEF
3
KEY MESSAGES
Climate Resilience in the Built Environment
Climate change impacts affect multiple sectors and at varying scales.
n
Introducing a climate resilience agenda to the urban planning and development paradigm would help
integrate this new challenge with the overall development vision of the cities in India.
n
Need to sensitize and amend regulations and institutions and find ways for institutional coordination and
integration to achieve this.
n
Overcoming capacity gaps should be addressed through training, capacity building and general awareness
programs targeting multiple stakeholders at various levels.
n
Data management systems have to be developed to base and inform decision making and subsequently
developing resilience strategies.
n
It is also observed that toolkits and guidebooks would prove to be essential and useful means to help cities
develop their resilience plans.
n
Contextualization of available global experiences of resilience planning to suit regional needs is an
essential component of the overall resilience mandate. A larger exercise is therefore needed to be taken up
where various states come together, to review and revise their existing development regulations, guidelines
and bye-laws to bring in climate resilience.
n
UCCR Policy Brief Series
Policy Brief 3
1
Urban Climate Change Resilience
POLICY BRIEF
3
I
ncreasing urban population and rapid urbanization has led to tremendous pressure on infrastructure and
services over the cities in India. Burgeoning demand for housing and the city's inability to fulfill the same has
led to proliferation of slums. Systemic inefficiencies have led to poor management of city affairs. Urban sprawl has
led to extensive deforestation and change in land use land cover with an increase in the built-up area.
1
VISION FOR CLIMATE RESILIENT CITIES
Climate change and its associated impacts would only add to these challenges. Climate change impacts can wipe
out development gains and would significantly reduce quality of life (Prasad et al, 2009:10).
In case of inaction, climate change impacts would work in two ways:
1. The gradual impacts of climate change like change in pattern of rainfalls and change in temperatures would
anyway force us to either adapt or bear the brunt; for example; responding to diseases and epidemics because
of temperature rise, or water scarcity and urban flooding due to changing rainfall patterns.
2. The climate impacts leading to extreme events like increased instances of cyclones would extend loss of lives,
property, livelihood and infrastructure. Besides leading to huge economic loss, the social costs of these
damages would be huge, particularly to the vulnerable sections like poor, disabled and children.
There is, therefore, a need to understand the implications of climate change, its associated impacts on urban
systems and the vulnerability in terms of vulnerable sectors, hot spots and population. This understanding should
be utilized for future and current planning practices to reduce vulnerability and to steer urban development
towards climate resilience. However, this could only happen when climate considerations are mainstreamed into
the development discourse. This would lead to a holistic rather than sectoral engagement in dealing with the
impacts of climate change. To expedite action and draw early lessons from these actions, there is merit in
mainstreaming climate risk reduction into on-going and planned investment, existing capital stock, and associated
city planning, government and management practices instead of waiting for new large-scale adaptation and
mitigation investments. The following diagram explains the vision of climate resilient cities and possible directions
through which this could be achieved.
UCCR Policy Brief Series
Policy Brief 3
2
Urban Climate Change Resilience
2
POLICY BRIEF
3
CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
Urban development paradigm is steered primarily by extent and manner in which the built environment and
various land uses are housed and planned within the city limits. Climate change will have the potential to
influence the built environment negatively. For example, increase in temperature would lead to enhanced heat
island effect in urban areas. Similarly, change in precipitation levels would lead to increased incidence of flash
floods and water logging in the cities and dampness in buildings. These changes would affect the infrastructure
and services of the city; for example; disturbed water supply due to drought conditions, problems related to
transport due to floods and inundation. The current planning for infrastructure and services does not factor impact
of climate change on the city. The existing infrastructure in most of the cities and towns is inadequate even for
current needs. The degree of impacts of climate change is hence intricately linked to the urban land use choices
that we make today and would have the ability to exacerbate these negative influences if combined with faulty
urban planning practices. Additionally, the impacts of climate change also have strong social consequences as the
poor are the worst hit from these events.
Resilient planning would include preparing urban systems, built
environment and social fabric to withstand these changes and
associated impacts. For example appropriate road pavement design
and urban greening could lead to reduction in the Urban Heat Island
effect. Similarly, adopting principle of inclusive planning and
ascertaining access to insurance would help reduce the social
vulnerability. Gorakhpur and Guwahati are two ACCCRN cities with
flooding and water logging as their perpetual problem. Climate
projections for both the cities show increased intensity of extreme
rainfall events. However, in neither of the cities, the existing bye-laws
address the need for fundamental design changes to respond to the
problem of flooding and waterlogging.
Moreover, damage to settlements, human lives, health, and loss of
livelihood are some of the associated impacts of climate change. In
Surat, the textile industry faces loss of material and livelihoods of its
workers due to floods (TARU, 2011). All these examples have
ascertained the inherent relationship of the built environment, urban
planning and climatic parameters and the urgent need for planned
interventions in this direction. The ACCCRN program has recognized
this and adopted some interventions in the core cities of the program
(highlighted in the table).
In Guwahati, the changing rainfall
patterns have led to increase in the
total volume of rainfall in a day. Since,
most of watershed area and natural
drainage area are now built up, a lot of
waterlogging takes place and the
rainwater does not get drained out
(TERI, 2013).
Increased rainfall intensity in
Gorakhpur and Guwahati per day has
led to a need for designing and laying
of adequate storm water drains. In
Guwahati particularly, the rain water
also carried lot of silt that comes from
the hills that surround the city. Hence,
the design of storm water storms has
to have adequate silt catchments
within the storm water system (TERI,
2013; Shiraz et al, 2010).
Table: Summary of ACCCRN interventions in 3 core cities
City
Climate vulnerability
Gorakhpur
Prolonged water logging together
with poor waste management has
caused an increase in the incidence of
vector borne diseases
Indore
Surat
UCCR Policy Brief Series
Water scarcity is the main threat to
the city of Indore, with the level of
water demand far outstripping the
supply
Flooding, coastal storms and
cyclones, sea level rise and
inundation are major threats to the
port city of Surat
Policy Brief 3
City projects identified and
implemented under ACCCRN
ACCCRN outcomes
City resilience strategy
document
n
Resilience strategy
mainstreaming plan
n
n
n
Implementing and Promoting Ward-level
Micro Resilience Planning
Implementing and Promoting Adaptive
Peri-Urban Agriculture
Testing and promoting decentralized
systems for differential water sources and
uses
n
City resilience strategy
document
Strengthening vector-borne disease
surveillance and response systems
n
City resilience strategy
document
End-to-end Early Warning System
n
Urban Health and Climate Resilience
Center
n
3
Urban Climate Change Resilience
3
POLICY BRIEF
3
INTEGRATION OF RESILIENCE MEASURES IN THE DEVELOPMENT
PLANNING FRAMEWORK
While the pilot projects identified in the core cities
were important in terms of measurability of success
of the initiative, the notion of integration of
resilience measures in the development planning
process in the project cities and later in the larger
policy regulatory framework was understood as an
essential element within the program.
Some of the learning from the exercise in various
ACCCRN cities provides useful insights into the
possible entry points for bringing in resilience
planning in Indian cities. The desired integration
would essentially be a multilevel integration where
international community, research organizations
etc. provide necessary funds, technical support,
capacity support and knowledge base for the city,
while the national and state governments provide
the right kind of policy regulatory and institutional
support. The local government would be essentially
involved in the implementation, monitoring and
feedback stage.
ENTRY POINTS AT NATIONAL LEVEL
Although, urban development is a state subject, the central government contributes to major funding for urban
development and oversees many national level schemes and policies to influence and foster urban development.
1. A policy proposing climate resilience agenda for India's urban centres
The Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) as the nodal agency for urban development planning in India is better
placed to draw up a new policy that proposes a new climate resilience agenda for India's urban centers. The policy
must initiate research, capacity building and data management as its starting point considering the fact that
knowledge about specific climate change related impacts on urban centers is not available and would differ from
city to city. The policy could forward the objectives that are drawn out within the National Mission on Sustainable
Habitat.
2. Integrate climate resilience through flagship schemes of the Government of India
i) JNNURM Phase II: In line with CDPs and city mobility plans prepared under JNNURM, the new phase of
JNNURM could foster preparation of climate resilience strategy within each mission cities as one of the reforms
that the city should comply with. Funds could be allocated under JNNURM towards adaptation planning/ projects
that would emerge from the resilience strategy. These could be funds to generate data, to facilitate city specific
research, and implement short and medium term adaptation projects.
ii) The Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (MoHUPA) is the apex authority to formulate national
level policies. MoHUPA is also the nodal Ministry for implementation of the component on Basic Services to Urban
Poor (BSUP) under JnNURM and the Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) - a scheme that targets provision of low cost housing
to the urban poor. The ACCCRN initiatives have highlighted urban poor as the most vulnerable population due to
climate change due to their marginalized position in society and lack of access to proper housing, and basic
UCCR Policy Brief Series
Policy Brief 3
4
Urban Climate Change Resilience
POLICY BRIEF
3
services. Fostering 'climate resilient communities' within these schemes would help in targeting the climate
vulnerable strata of the society and make way for reducing their vulnerabilities. Some of these initiatives have
to be focused around health issues and hence integrated policies with Ministry of Health would be beneficial to
achieve overall objective of reduced vulnerability and increased community resilience.
iii) The elements of the Urban Sanitation Policy and the Service Level Benchmarks could integrate climate
related parameters.
3. Revise and integrate resilience measures through national and state level guidelines
UDPFI guidelines: The Urban Development and Plan Formulation and Implementation (UDPFI) Guidelines are
being used by the ULB or Development Authority for planning at city/zonal/ neighborhood level. The
guidelines are in the process of revision. Since the guidelines ascertain planning details at the level of the city
and neighborhood, the guidelines have a great potential to instigate resilience/adaptation measures. For
example, introduction of Sustainable Urban Drainage System (SUDS), which is a system to manage surface
water runoff in a more sustainable manner, compared to traditional pipes (open/closed) systems (TERI, 2012).
The National Building Code of India (NBC): This comprehensive Building Code is a national instrument
providing guidelines for regulating the building construction activities across the country. It serves as a Model
Code for adoption by all agencies involved in building construction works, for example, the Public Works
Departments (PWD), other government construction departments, local bodies or private construction
agencies. The Code mainly contains administrative regulations, development control rules and general
building requirements stipulations regarding materials, etc. The codes may be amended to bring in certain
specific climate change related parameters that could help guide construction activities.
ENTRY POINTS AT STATE LEVEL
Urban development is a state subject according to The Constitution of India. Any institutionalization at state
level for bringing in climate resilience within the state's agenda could be made through making an
amendment in the existing state level Acts. Besides this, the state level parastatals like: Jal Nigam (Water
Boards), the Public Health and Engineering department (PHED) and The Public Works Department (PWD) are
important institutions that would play a crucial role in restoring services and infrastructure during
emergencies/extreme events. These are also some of the institutions through which the adaptation projects
and actions could be materialized on ground.
ENTRY POINTS AT CITY LEVEL
1. Planning: Till date the Master Plans are the crucial planning documents within the city driven through the
city development authorities or the State Town and Country Planning Offices. Since these are also long term
land use planning documents and also define and ascertain the development regulations and influence the
building bye-laws, these are by far the most important document to be targeted at city level to include climate
resilience. The Gorakhpur mainstreaming strategy and Guwahati resilience strategy calls for inclusion of a
chapter on climate resilience (TERI 2012; TERI 2013) in their respective Master Plans.
2. Influencing Bye-laws and planning norms: Each city has separate building bye-law and planning norms
which frame the development regulations for the city. These Bye-Laws are important tools and should be
guided by climate information to bring in resilient construction and building design parameters into practice.
For instance, in case of revised building byelaws to regulate the construction of buildings under the
jurisdiction of Guwahati Metropolitan Area, specific propositions were given on inclusion of specific energy
efficiency measures on interior and exterior lighting, electrical systems, HVAC systems, integration of
renewable energy systems and specific building envelope recommendations as per the climatic conditions of
the region.
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3. Institutionalization: The municipal corporation as an institution is crucial for implementation of resilience
measures. In Surat, one of the core ACCCRN cities In India, the Municipal Corporation took the initiative for
not only preparing the city resilience strategy but also for institutionalizing the climate resilience agenda by
creating new partnerships and focused centers for addressing specific problems of the city (See Box example
on Surat)
Example from Surat
One of the key achievements of the project in Surat was the formation of the Urban
Health and Climate Resilience Centre (UHCRC) and the Surat Climate Change Trust
(SCCT). The Surat Climate Change Trust (SCCT) is a city level multi-stakeholder public
trust having its office at the City Engineer's Office, SMC. It includes members from
various institutions including Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority, Narmada,
Water Resources and Water Supply Department, South Gujarat Chamber of Commerce
& Industries, Academic Instructions (SVNIT and CSS). It was formulated with the
objective of addressing problems arising out of urbanization and climate change and
to facilitate capacity building of Surat to address these challenges (Surat Climate
Change Trust. 2013. 'About us').
In 2012, SMC with support from the Rockefeller Foundation established a first of a kind
institution in the country - the UHCRC (housed within SMC's Health Department) that
aims to address public health and climate change adaptation issues (ACCCRN, 2012).
SMC has allocated Rs. 10 million to UHCRC for its functioning (Bhat, 2013).
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OVERCOMING THE INHERENT CHALLENGES – WAY FORWARD
Policy and institutional mandate: ACCCRN experience has shown that a strong policy and mandate at national
and state level is necessary for more and more cities to take up resilience planning exercises. Institutional
mandates are defined by clear objectives and vision for development. Introducing a climate resilience agenda to
the urban planning and development paradigm would help integrate this new challenge with the overall
development vision of the cities in India.
Coordinated action at all levels of government: Experiences from ACCCRN India have highlighted that climate
change impacts affects multiple sectors and at varying scales. The division of authority and institutional set-up at
central, state and city level for climate sensitive sectors like disaster management, water, power etc. could impact
timely coordination and real time decision making (Brown et al, 2012). Hence, there is a strong need for finding
ways for institutional coordination and integration.
This would require a broader consensus and coordinated action at all levels of the government including a clear
definition of institutional roles and responsibilities to achieve the agenda. Ascertaining and introducing climate
resilience into existing regulations and informing/building capacity of related institutions would give an initial head
start.
Capacity building: Considering that there is still a broader lack of awareness about climate change and its
specific impacts on urban systems, there is indeed a need to find ways and means to address this knowledge gap.
The most important step would be to equip the city managers and decision makers alike to appreciate climate
resilience as one of the mandates for urban development planning and build their capacity to implement some of
the reforms, actions and regulatory changes that are being proposed through this policy brief. It is also observed
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that toolkits and guidebooks would prove to be essential and useful means to help cities develop their
resilience plans. ACCCRN experience gives two important lessons: i) The urgency to initiate fundamental
changes in planning at all levels with resilience to climate change as the focal point; ii) Intensive action around
implementation for the above plans at all scales. Needless to say, both of these require rigorous training,
capacity building and general awareness and an overwhelming desire to walk the talk.
Data management: Data management systems have to be developed to base and inform decision making and
subsequently developing resilience strategies.
A larger exercise to review and revise: While examples from initiatives like ACCRN and many other parallel
initiatives globally provide extensive insights on the way forward in terms of mainstreaming, yet
contextualization of these experiences to suit regional needs is an essential component of the overall
resilience mandate. A larger exercise is therefore needed to be taken up where various states come together,
to review and revise their existing development regulations, guidelines and bye-laws to bring in climate
resilience. Extensive replication would only be possible when the governance systems and institutional
mechanisms are designed, updated and channelized towards the goal of resilient cities.
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POLICY BRIEF OVERVIEW
Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) is a network of cities in India, Indonesia, Thailand,
Philippines, Bangladesh and Vietnam, experimenting with a range of activities that will collectively improve
the ability of the cities to withstand, to prepare for, and to recover from the projected impacts of climate
change. One of the key intervention focuses to build policy debate around UCCR. Policy makers seek evidencebased guidance as a foundation for decision-making. ACCCRN India partners have been working with cities in
India since 2008 and it highlights sound practices, demonstration projects and interventions on building
resilience to climate change.
It was recognized to tap the knowledge and develop evidence-based Policy Briefs to address the needs of the
decision makers at the level of the national/state and city government on UCCR. In the period 2013-2014,
ACCCRN India is producing a series of UCCR policy guidance briefs. For a complete list of reports, case
studies, policy briefs, please visit www.acccrn.org
References
Anna, Brown., Ashvin, Dayal., and Cristina Rumbaitis Del Rio. 2012. From practice to theory: emerging lessons from Asia
for building urban climate change resilience. Environment and Urbanisation. 24: 531.
Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network, 2012. ACCCRN city projects. The Rockefeller Foundation, Thailand.
Bhatt, H. 8 February 2013. Climate resilience centre to be operational by March. Times of India. Available at:
Neeraj, Prasad., Federica, Ranghieri., Fatima, Shah., Zoe, Trohanis., Earl, Kessler., and Ravi, Sinha., 2009. Climate
Resilient Cities-A Primer on Reducing Vulnerabilities to Disasters. [online] Washington DC: The World Bank. 160pp.
Available at: [Accessed 20
September 2013]
Shiraz A, Wajih., Bijay, Singh., Ekta, Bartarya., Shukla, Basu., and ACCCRN ISET Team. 2010. Towards a Resilient
Gorakhpur. GEAG, Gorakhpur.
Surat Climate Change Trust 2013. About us. Available at:
TERI. 2012. Mainstreaming Climate Resilience in Urban Areas – A case of Gorakhpur City. TERI, New Delhi.
TERI. 2013. Climate Proofing Guwahati, Assam. City Resilience strategy and Mainstreaming Plan (Synthesis Report). TERI,
New Delhi
TARU. 2011. Surat City Resilience Strategy. Available at:
https://acccrn.org/sites/default/files/documents/SuratCityResilienceStrategy_ACCCRN_01Apr2011_small_0.pdf
This Policy Brief is written by: The Energy and Resources Institute, www.teriin.org
Telephone: +91.11.24682100 /41504900
Email (ACCCRN Focal point): divyas@teri.res.in
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