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Purpose – This work offers an investigation of the planning and implementation of climate-adaptation and vulnerability-reduction strategies in coastal mega-cities of the Global South, utilizing Kolkata, India, as a case study. This research is designed to identify factors that aid the implementation of climate-centered action in resource-constrained environments of developing countries and provide a set of policy guidelines reflecting best practices.

Methodology/approach – This work draws principally upon analysis of semistructured field interviews conducted in Kolkata, India, during December 2010 and January 2011. The findings are informed by additional data sources as well, including field observations, informal dialogues and meetings, and a review of secondary literature.

Findings – This work identifies several key success factors, including organizational restructuring, resource redistribution, technological innovation, use of external consultants, coupling of climate and development projects, and integration of climate approaches into infrastructure projects.

Research limitations – This research draws upon Kolkata as a case study; thus the work's broader applicability and utility depend on the similarities between the situation in Kolkata and that of other urban areas. As a local study, this work may also offer fewer insights for regional and national policy.

Originality and value – This work fills a timely, unmet need for a greater understanding of climate-adaptation action in the context of cities of the developing world. The extensive use of personal interviews provides unique insights into the minds of planning officials and professionals and draws upon their practical experience to draw lessons for a wide range of similar environments.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) IPCC (2007) projects that greater precipitation intensity and variability will increase the risks of flooding in many areas because of climate change. With climate change already happening, societies worldwide face the parallel challenge of having to adapt to its impacts as a certain degree of climate change is inevitable throughout this century and beyond, even if global mitigation efforts over the next decades prove successful (European Commission, 2007).

The pace of urbanization in the developing world is led by Asia. Over the next 25 years, Asia's urban population will grow by around 70% to more than 2.6 billion people. An additional billion people will have urban habitats (ADB, 2006).

The “Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and communities to disasters” (HFA) was adopted at the UN World Conference on Disaster Reduction (January 2005, Kobe, Japan). The HFA specifies that disaster risk is compounded by increasing vulnerabilities related to various elements including unplanned urbanization. Across the HFA, important elements on urban risk reduction are mentioned as one of crucial areas of work to implement the HFA. In particular incorporating disaster risk reduction into urban planning is specified to reduce the underlying risk factors (Priority 4).

Urban resilience is a fairly new but rapidly emerging area of interest. Academia as well as the professional and practitioner communities are increasingly engaged in understanding the characteristics of resilience in complex urban issues. The year 2007–2008 was a historical milestone in human history for two reasons. First, the percentage of urban population to total population in the world touched 50 percent; second, the works of climate scientists were recognized as being so significant that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2007. Both events are closely associated with and provide special impetus to further research into and understanding of urban resilience, which this chapter discusses further in the following sections.

Urbanization is a complex dynamic process playing out over multiple scales of space and time. It is both a social phenomenon and a physical transformation of landscape that is now clearly at the forefront of defining current and future trends of development. The key challenge for effective urban risk reduction and mitigation will be to identify the points of intersection for urban vulnerability and risk reduction in order to localize and contextualize the components, so that it can be customized to the unique needs of each urban area. This requires a critical revisit to the way we look at cities and urban areas, and is a useful starting point to contextualize the urban risk management components presented earlier. Taken together these points of intersection put cities in a unique position to generate both the problem and the solution. The concentration of politico-economic decision-making processes in cities of Asia, particularly capital mega cities, provide greater opportunities to meet the urban vulnerability challenge. For effective urban risk reduction, there is a need to strike a balance between natural and built environments and between ecological and economic objectives.

Risk reduction in cities of fast developing nations is both an opportunity and a big challenge. It is an opportunity because cities are considered efficient spatial forms of human habitation where smart interventions can be optimized. However, involvement and ownership of urban society is a big challenge. This paper illustrates these challenges and opportunities with an example of India's largest city – Mumbai. It discusses Mumbai's key drivers of risk, contributing factors to vulnerabilities and places it in the context of the 2005 flood – a disaster of a scale never experienced before. Citizen–government partnerships emanating from community-based small-scale initiatives for improving neighborhood's environment are analyzed. The paper concludes that there are enormous benefits in scaling up the participatory approaches, which result in reducing vulnerabilities and enhancing resilience of cities. Urban risk reduction will remain a daunting task if not built around these existing strengths of cities and their citizens.

The fact that the world is becoming increasingly urbanized is recognized by the United Nations (UNFPA, 2007) in the State of the World Population Report as the “The Urban Millennium.” In year 1950, 30% of the world's population lived in cities and as of recently, the population has reached up to 50%, making year 2007 a turning point in the history of urban population growth (Bigio, 2003; Kreimer, Arnold, & Caitlin, 2003; UN-HABITAT, 2007). By year 2030, the United Nations expects more than 60% of population to be living in cities (Munich Re, 2005). And as shown by Surjan and Shaw (2009), by year 2050, the world's urban population is expected to grow by 3 billion people. Most of this growth will take place in developing countries, with the urban population in cities and towns doubling. As it has been summarized, from 1991 to 2005, more than 3.5 billion people were affected by disasters; more than 950,000 people have taken their lives unwillingly and damages have reached nearly 1,193 billion US dollars. Developing countries will suffer the most from climate change, since they are disproportionally affected and have intrinsic vulnerabilities to hazards and so far have struggled in increasing the capacity for risk reduction measures (Wahlström, 2009). Nevertheless, by contrast, even in the largest and wealthiest countries, which have diversified economies and risk transfer mechanisms, the loss has topped an amount of billions of US dollars, as was the case with Hurricane Katrina in USA in 2005. It has been confirmed with facts over the last two decades (1988–2007) that 76% of all disaster events were hydrological, meteorological, or climatological in nature, whether it occurred in urban or in rural areas.

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges to development. Intergovernmental Committee in response to Climate Change (IPCC, 2007), with majority agreement, has pointed out that climate change is caused by human activities. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also pointed out that these serious impacts by climate change will directly affect the poorer and more vulnerable communities and nations. According to the Human Development Report 2007–2008 by United Nation Development Program (UNDP, 2008), people in rural areas are most vulnerable to climate change, because it directly affects the resources in the ecosystem on which their lives depend. Countries with newly developed economy will be seriously hit, economically and socially, within the next few decades by natural disasters such as flood, draught, and storm, which have been increasing in number and severity. Human health is also adversely affected, which has multiplying effects in different sectors.