Climate resilience

Cities and urban areas are key sites of social, environmental and economic progress and innovation.

However, they are often at high risk from extreme weather and climate change hazards such as flooding, sea level rise and heat stress. This is due to factors including their location and the number of vulnerable people and assets that they contain. In addition, urbanisation can act to intensify weather and climate hazards locally, through processes including hard surfacing and loss of green space. Given the projections for rapid climate change over the course of this century, there is an abundant need for cities and urban areas to become more resilient to the changing climate.

For well over a decade, CURE has delivered projects linked to urban climate change adaptation and resilience. These have explored related issues at a range of interconnected spatial scales, from the building to the region. In particular, Greater Manchester has acted as an urban laboratory where our understanding of this theme has progressed.

Broadly, projects and initiatives explore the connections between three key dimensions of the adaptation and resilience agenda; climate change hazards, vulnerability to these hazards and responses to related risks. A multidisciplinary approach and diverse methods, from geographical information systems to scenario planning, inform our studies.

Researchers working on projects connected to the urban climate resilience theme maintain close links to policy and practice within Greater Manchester and upwards nationally and internationally. Indeed, projects are often designed with collaboration in mind. Co-production is viewed as key to the development of useful research outputs in this field. Particularly strong networks are maintained with local and regional authorities. This approach has supported the goal of generating ‘impact’ for research undertaken within CURE.