Affiliation:
1. Columbia University, New York, USA
2. Sustainable South Bronx, Bronx, New York, USA
Abstract
Global climate change is expected to pose increasing challenges for cities in the following decades, placing greater stress and impacts on multiple social and biophysical systems, including population health, coastal development, urban infrastructure, energy demand, and water supplies. Simultaneously, a strong global trend towards urbanisation of poverty exists, with increased challenges for urban populations and local governance to protect and sustain the wellbeing of growing cities. In the context of these 2 overarching trends, interdisciplinary research at the city scale is prioritised for understanding the social impacts of climate change and variability and for the evaluation of strategies in the built environment that might serve as adaptive responses to climate change. This article discusses 2 recent initiatives of The Earth Institute at Columbia University (EI) as examples of research that integrates the methods and objectives of several disciplines, including environmental health science and urban planning, to understand the potential public health impacts of global climate change and mitigative measures for the more localised effects of the urban heat island in the New York City metropolitan region. These efforts embody 2 distinct research approaches. The New York Climate & Health Project created a new integrated modeling system to assess the public health impacts of climate and land use change in the metropolitan region. The Cool City Project aims for more applied policyoriented research that incorporates the local knowledge of community residents to understand the costs and benefits of interventions in the built environment that might serve to mitigate the harmful impacts of climate change and variability, and protect urban populations from health stressors associated with summertime heat. Both types of research are potentially useful for understanding the impacts of environmental change at the urban scale, the policies needed to address these challenges, and to train scholars capable of collaborative approaches across the social and biophysical sciences.
Key words: Adaptation, Cities, Planning, Urban heat island
Publisher
Academy of Medicine, Singapore
Reference78 articles.
1. Davis M. Planet of slums: urban involution and the informal proletariat.New Left Review 2004;26:5-34.
2. United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT). Available at: http://www.unhabitat.org/about/challenge.asp. Accessed 14 May 2006.
3. Northridge ME, Sclar E. A joint urban planning and public healthframework: contributions to health impact assessment. Am J Public Health 2003;93:118-21.
4. IPCC, 2007. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis – Summary for Policymakers. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC. WMO/UNEP (February 2007:p12).
5. Columbia Earth Institute, Center for International Earth ScienceInformation Network (CIESIN), Global Rural Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP). Available at: http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/news/ 2005/story03-07-05.html. Accessed 5 April 2006.
Cited by
1 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献