GLOBAL CITIES INSTITUTE An RMIT Research and Innovation Institute Urban Climate Change Infrastructur

1
GLOBAL CITIES INSTITUTEAn RMIT Research and
Innovation InstituteUrban Climate Change
Infrastructure Adaptationupdated January 30-08
2
Global Climate Change Adaptation Program

• Goal to create a global framework for the
  infrastructural adaptation of cities to climate
  change.
• Objectives
• to complete an assessment of the relative
  vulnerability of strategically-chosen cities in
  the Asia Pacific region
• to design strategies to increase resilience of
  those cities in relation to climate-change
  impacts.
• to implement an initiative composed of specific
  urban-infrastructural adaptive responses based on
  RMITs scientific and technological innovations
  that exemplify the general global principles that
  should frame urban climate-change adaptation

3
Global Climate Change Adaptation Program

• 4 Integrated Program activities
• Assess and map the vulnerability of urban
  infrastructure in selected cities in Asia Pacific
  to climate change impacts
• Develop scenarios and strategic pathways for
  urban infrastructural adaptation
• Implement an adaptive infrastructural initiative
  in two cities one Australian and one in the
  Asia-Pacific region and
• Propose a global framework for equitable and
  efficient allocation of adaptation costs and
  convene a global or regional mayoral event on
  World Environment Day, 2008, to launch a global
  city compact for implementing city-level
  adaptation commitments.

4
Global Climate Change Adaptation Program

• 1. Urban Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment
  
• Assess the climate-related infrastructural
  vulnerability in comparative fashion of different
  intermediate sized Asian-Pacific cities that are
  potential locales for a climate-change initiative
  by conducting
• Risk-hazard analysis of urban physical
  infrastructure, especially sensitivity to climate
  change impacts on water, built assets, waste
  management, and energy systems
• Socio-economic analysis of vulnerability arising
  from climate change urban infrastructural impacts
  due differential availability of and access to
  resources needed for adaptation.
• Year 1 Convene RMIT research group identify
  research collaborators in Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh
  City prepare common framework for comparative
  research and analysis conduct preliminary
  research. Use this research to identify other
  highly-vulnerable candidate sites for the
  infrastructural initiative.
• Year 2 Produce integrated infrastructural
  vulnerability profiles of specific urban
  communities and cities to external stresses
  arising from climate change develop quantitative
  and qualitative indices of vulnerability and
  sensitivity, and production of decision tools
  (based on GIS) to enable cities to conduct such
  analysis, including stakeholder consultation and
  participation.

5
Supporting Projects 2007-8, year 1

• HCMC scenarios workshop and insights
• VGBC and VASS joint research and training
  projects
• Possible comparative local community studies by
  CS WG (Hamilton, St. Kilda, Westernport (?), Port
  Moresby,KL, HCMC?
• Research Tools (none selected as of yet)

6
VGBC Workplan 2008
Phase I -- VGBC-GCI Sust. CCA Research/Training
Program (11/15/07-7/25/08) 1. Identify
participants and initial research projects. VGBC
technical committee, in three bi-monthly
meetings, selects VN working group. Joint
research topics are selected from above list for
rolling implementation in consultation
with representatives of GCI-RMIT climate change
and infrastructure working groups.
(12/7/07-1/26/08) 2. Develop funding strategies
for 2008/Phase II. VGBC director and
GCI-RMIT program leaders identify funding
sources, devise strategies for collaboration conti
nuation and expansion, and begin implementation.
(12/07/07-4/14/08) 3. Develop sustainable CCA
training program. VGBC tailors weeklong
intensive training for VN working group, centered
on April 16-17 green building and design seminar
in Melbourne. (12/15-4/1) 4. Preliminary
research. VN working group conducts initial
research, data collection, and literature
reviews. (12/7-4/15) 5. VN researchers contribute
to V-SCCAN website. Working group
summarizes research for Vietnamese and GCI-RMIT
on V-SCCAN. (2/15-6/30) 6. VN researchers visit
Australia. VN working group visits Melbourne for
green building seminar and enhancement lectures,
green building study tours, and research
presentation and discussion with RMIT-GCI
researchers. The last develops joint research
follow-up and enhancement. (4/14-4/21) 7.
Assessment of funding status and strategic
review. VGBC director and GCIRMIT program leaders
discuss revisions to funding strategies
and implementation plan for remainder of 2008.
(4/14-4/21) 8. Joint research determined. VN
working group and GCI-RMIT researchers finalize
joint topics, begin working toward paper
completion and submission to peer-reviewed
journal. (4/22-5/15) 9. Phase I midpoint report.
VGBC and VN working group summarize results
of visit, direction of joint research. Published
on V-SCCAN. (5/15) 10. Fundraising
implementation. VGBC director and GCI-RMIT
program leaders continue joint fundraising
efforts. (4/22-7/25) 11. Submission to scholarly
journals. Research teams submit initial papers.
(7/25 or in time for 2008 publication) 12.
Sustainable CCA training VN working group
prepares Vietnamese training seminars for
secondary group (150) of building professionals.
(4/25-7/25)
Funded by CCAP WG 55K IFS WG 7K VSF 10K
7
Vietnam Research Themes 1 VGBC
1. Urban planning mechanisms and dynamics a. A
study of the institutional and policy context of
urban development in Viet Nam, with a focus on
its two largest cities, Hanoi and HCMC. b.
Subtopics the changing relationship between city
and national government bureaucratic roles CCA
capacity/needs housing and development policy
with regards to equity, social, economic,
and environmental goals. RMIT Counterpart
Researcher is? 3. Developing sustainable CCA
(green) building benchmarks a. Integrating CCA
concepts into development of VGBC green
building benchmarks. (Possible extension for
regional adoption/training.) b. Subtopics global
green standards, modifications for tropical
climates and developing economies, global CCA
concepts, possible and probable GCC outcomes for
Viet Nam over various timelines.\ RMIT
counterpart CFDand? 6. Solar desalinization
(low-energy water supply/treatment) a. Extending
CARE (RMIT) work on solar desal, saltwater
greenhouses, and other decentralized water
infrastructure projects to Viet Nam. b. Initial
scoping study gauges which technologies hold most
potential for rapid, efficient integration into
VN infrastructure. RMIT counterpart
CARE--Aliakbar
8
2. VASS
VASS 3 social science fellows, March-June, study
tour in Melbourne, report on Social science
priorities for CCA in Vietnam (jointly with RMIT
researchers, VGBC, Focus on urban Jointly funded
by Endeavour Fellowships, JF-GCI VSF, CCAP Point
people JF JAS (research integration), SJ
(agenda), IFT (logistics), ? (admin) Theme
VGBC-VASS linkage 2. GIS-based mapping of urban
socio-economic landscape a. Gathering social and
economic urban data with regards to aspects such
as housing, location, and urban forms. b.
Identifying social, economic, and geophysical
vulnerabilities with respect to GCC. Followup
reciprocal RMIT research visits to Vietnam late
2008 funded by NF-RI?
9
Research and Decision Tools

None selected as of yet for Vulnerability
assessment Is GCI investing in GIS is a key issue
10
Global Climate Change Adaptation Program

• 2. Urban Infrastructural Climate Change Adaptive
  Scenarios and Strategies
• Develop a set of basic adaptation scenarios and
  strategies as a strategic tool to be used by
  policy-makers in regional cities, including
  sustainability-driven retreat, highly-built
  defences, and riding-out the storm, with each
  scenario containing technological, economic,
  demographic, cultural, and security strands for
  energy and built-infrastructure, quantitative
  analysis of adaptive paths will be developed in
  order to
• Identify robust urban adaptation strategies
• Develop strategies with other cities in a common
  analytical framework (possibly new software
  decision tool focused on urban managers, which
  are currently non-existent), and
• Ascertain opportunities for co-ordination,
  sharing, collaboration, and possible initiatives
  with counterpart cities.
• Year 1 Convene urban infrastructure climate
  change adaptation scenarios workshop
• Year 2 Conduct urban adaptive pathway workshop

11
Supporting Projects

• Scenarios and Robust Community Strategies
• Implementation Jodi-Anne Smith salary, half
  time (trained by GBN in Oct-07)
• HCMC workshop, Nov 07 Publication Vietnam HCMC
  workshop report (Futures)
• Workshops 2008
• Hamilton Workshop Feb
• Report Yaso-Martin team with CRG
• Publication
• ARC Linkage community response
• Oz-Indonesia CCSecurity June Canberra
• Richard Tanter Human Security WG Pelangi in
  Jakarta
• Publication Science, Futures, CC journals
• ARC Linkage with security agencies, Indonesian
  orgs
• Co-Funding Wallace Global Fund
• St. Kilda, Martin-Yaso-CSWG, Fall 08
• Scenarios Quantitative Tool Development
• ABM Tool Development integrated with scenarios
  method (Feb 8th meeting)

12
Global Climate Change Adaptation Program

• 3. Urban Infrastructure CC Adaptation Initiative
• Develop RMIT-driven sectorally-specific,
  cross-disciplinary technological infrastructural
  innovations to increase urban resilience and to
  increase adaptive capacity to climate change.
• Select candidates from an RMIT technological
  inventory for the initiative by screening
  possible innovations against the criteria of
  least-regrets, overlap with globally and
  socially-justified climate mitigation measures,
  scalability and replicability, and extent to
  which it reduces the multiple jeopardies facing
  the most vulnerable populations due to
  non-climate change stresses
• 2. Develop, test, and transfer the
  innovation to the demonstration project level in
  at least two cities, one in Australia and one in
  the region, within three years.
• Year 1 inventory and select RMIT infrastructural
  candidate technologies for climate change
  adaptation in context of candidate vulnerable
  cities assessed in element 1 initial candidates
  are buildings energy-related adaptations and
  waste water treatment adaptation technologies.
• Year 2 implement demonstration project and
  develop related decision tools for assessing need
  for and utility of a range of adaptive
  technologies

13
Supporting Projects

• Solar-Thermal/Low Grade Heat Water Desalination
  Technology
• Implementation, CARE-Bundoora, Aliakbar et al,
  20K/y, 3 years
• Co-funding strategies for years 2, 3Vic G,
  industry partners
• Publication technical journal, mid-08 (Peter
  Golding lead author, U-Texas)
• ARC strategy Linkage with DPI, industry
  partners
• Building Adaptive Materials Calculator
• Implementation Center for Design, 20K/year, 3
  years
• Co-funding strategies for years 2, 3
• Publication
• ARC strategy?
• GIS-Adaptive Urban Watershed Management
• Implementation Felicity Roddick, 30K/year, 2
  years
• Contingent upon Melb Water co-funding (Feb 15-08
  decision)
• ARC strategy?
• Water Recycling Chemical Treatment Process
• Implementation Felicity Roddick, 15K/year, 2
  years

14
Global Climate Change Adaptation Program

• 4. Global Climate Change Adaptation Rules
• Unlike climate change mitigation, there are no
  standards or rules by which to allocate the cost
  of adaptation in ways that are equitable and
  efficient.
• RMIT will convene a research group of eminent
  philosophers, economists, development
  practitioners, political scientists, and
  sociologists who will develop a set of
  qualitative and quantitative indices that should
  govern the allocation of incremental adaptation
  driven by anthropogenic climate change. This
  group will
• Examine the evolving climate change adaptation
  practices and rationales of international
  institutions such as the Global Environment
  Facility, the World Bank, the IFC, the WTO, etc
  and will engage prominent practitioners in the
  field of climate change adaptation such as
  insurance companies, bankers, architect and
  engineering firms, etc.
• Evaluate the potential for cities to become the
  prime drivers for an equitable and efficient
  global strategy to adapt to climate change.
• Examine the potential for a city-city level
  global compact on climate change adaptation to
  supplement or complement the post-Kyoto Protocol
  state-level framework for climate change
  mitigation and adaptation and introduce this
  instititutional concept to mayors throughout the
  region.
• Year 1 Conduct study and deliver policy
  proposals on Global climate change adaptation
  cost allocational rules.
• Year 2 Convene a mayoral level pan-Pacific (or
  global) meeting in Melbourne or regional city
  such as Ho Chi Minh City, to consider role of
  cities and possible Global City Compact on WED,
  June 5, 2008.

15
Element 4 Supporting Projects

• Delayed year 1 (startup, budget limit)
• OECD Round Table SD co-convener
• Committee of Melbourne partner
• Global Compact City Program?
• Year 2 startup research, workshop
• Co-funding Rockefeller Foundation?
• Climate Change Ministry ML office?
• Implementation Caroline Bayliss
• ARC strategy?

16
RMIT CCA Infrastructure

• 1. Assessment of RMIT CCA actual, latent
  research capacities
• Networked with Melbourne University (later
  others)
• Mine RMIT research database
• Profiling and networked capacities, software to
  enable users to identify capacity-clusters that
  match CCA issue-clusters
• Implementation Hayes, Falk, JOD, now JAS, needs
  project leader
• Co-Funding AGO-Griffith networks (RFP for
  settlements and infrastructure research later in
  2008)
• Arc Linkage in future on CCA knowledge and
  networks?
• AdaptNet
• Scanning key reports for researchers
• Created set of key users, ping them every 2 weeks
• Translated into Vietnamese and Indonesian already
• Engages donors

17
Pending GCI website
18
Project Portfolio

• Infrastructure
• AdaptNet
• RMIT networked CCA research profiling
• Tools
• Scenarios method
• Workshops
• ABM simulation?
• Building Adaptive Materials Calculator
• Adaptive Water
• Tech
• Solar-low grade heat desalination
• Chemical treatment gray water recycling
• Research
• Adaptive green building Vietnam green building
• Comparative community adaptive response and
  strategies
• Security impacts of CC on Indonesian-Australia
  relations

19
Global Climate Change Adaptation Program

• Urban climate change impacts related to
  infrastructure
• Sea level rise/intermediate size cities
• Coastal zone and watershed flooding Retreat vs
  defend vs do nothing
• Impact on urban infrastructuredrainage and
  watershed management, water and sewage, energy,
  built, transport and telecom, services
  (especially food, education, recreation,
  tourism,) and especially on linked networks,
  cascading failure potential
• Technological cost and risk
• Equity implications of each optionwho is
  obligated to pay, what is the cost, and who is
  likely to pay given the power differentials
• Climate extremes
• Drought-driven wildfires and downwind transport
  of particles, ground-level ozone, CO, polycyclic
  aromatic hydrocarbons affect urban populations
• Temperature, prolonged heat island effects
• Technological energy, materials, land use
  implications of greater T range
• Equity implications impact and cost on old,
  young, sick
• Extreme weather events
• Impact on cities Heat waves (heat stroke,
  dehydration, exhaustion, cardiovascular disease
  and mortality) Air quality (photochemical smog,
• Warning systems
• Flooding driving rodents into high density
  habitations, impacts on sanitation and water
  systems and public health
• Winds and wind loads

20
Global Climate Change Adaptation Program

• RMIT Water-Related Infrastructure Adaptive
  Capacity Cluster
• Severe storms resulting from climate change can
  have severe effects on water and sanitation
  systems, with major implications for public
  health.
• In addition to direct transmission of
  water-borne gastro-intestinal diseases resulting
  from the impact of floods on these systems,
  cities also face new insect-borne infectious
  diseases (especially via mosquitos) resulting
  from pooled and stagnant water with high organic
  loads between floods.
• Coastal cities face the additional burden of sea
  level rise and impact of direct contamination of
  drinking water by sewage and seafood
  contamination due to nutrient flushes and harmful
  algal blooms.
• Adaptive measures are manifold but include
  relocation of processing facilities, re-powering
  with decentralized energy sources, flood control
  and mitigation measures, and many public health
  monitoring and management technologies and
  methods

21
Global Climate Change Adaptation Program

• Sampling of RMIT Water-Related Infrastructure
  Adaptive Capacity Cluster
• Associate Professor Roger Hadgraft, Dr Nira
  Jayasuriya and Dr David Law
• Modelling risk for infrastructure assets
  associated with water and wastewater with regard
  to maintenance and potential environmental impact
• Lifecycle determination of assets associated with
  water and wastewater
• Management of stormwater distribution, upgrading
  of quality, management of surge flows and
  maximising harvest
• Modelling of water catchment and distribution
  systems
• Water audits and demand studies 
• Professor John Buckeridge, Associate Professor
  John Brumley
• Determination of extent of ground water resources
  and policy for their allocation, water trading. 
• Prediction of land subsidence and effects on
  infrastructure and environment due to groundwater
  extraction.
• Sustainable management of mineral springs with
  regard to hydrogeological and social factors.
• Engineering ethics, integration of cultural and
  spiritual values with scientific research and
  engineering design.
• Professor Felicity Roddick, Dr John Harris
• Treatment of potable water to comply with public
  health and aesthetic standards,
• Municipal and industrial wastewater treatment,
• Development and optimisation of methods for
  recycling wastewater
• Application of waste minimisation methods to
  reduce waste production and water pollution,
  particularly to reduce water demand.

22
Global Climate Change Adaptation Program

• Indicative International Partners
• IGES, East Asian urban climate change network
• START East Asia network
• IISD, Canada
• IIED, London
• ICLEI
• Climate Group Cities Network
• Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, City
  program
• UNEP Adaptation Center
• Cities of SF, Vancouver, Seattle, Seoul, Tokyo,
  Ho Chi Minh, Shanghai, Jakarta

23
Global Climate Change Adaptation Program

• Indicative Domestic Partners
• City of Melbourne
• Victorian GovernmentDSE
• Melbourne University-RMIT sustainability hub
• Monash University regional CC modelling
• CSIRO Atmospheric Sciences Division
• AGO five local urban adaptation projects, six
  applicants
• Corporate and civil society partners depending on
  city and infrastructure choice

24
CC CAPACITY CLUSTERS

• RMIT Urban Heat Island and Public Health Adaptive
  Capacity
• Example Climate change impacts
• Increased pollen production by weeds and trees
  due to more carbon dioxide combined with longer
  growing seasons
• Increased carbon dioxide may also stimulate
  increased molds, further nurtured by increased
  humidity resulting from higher temperatures
  combined with increased intensity of rainfall
• Particles such as diesel exhaust combine with
  mold and pollen to produce more allergens that
  are then delivered to vulnerable populations
  susceptible to respiratory disease
• Photochemical smog will increase due to longer
  and hotter heat waves that affect
  cardio-respiratory illness and mortality.
• Adaptive measures include
• Public health system responses to increased
  demand for services due to heat island effects of
  climate change
• Ameliorate heat island by public transport, green
  belts, urban trees, parks, and roof gardens