Spatial planning responses to climate change; evaluating and comparing the planning capacity to mainstream climate change adaptation into spatial planning in Gothenburg, Utrecht and Poznan
Summary
This research addresses the planning capacities that contribute the mainstreaming of climate adaptation into spatial planning. Due to the novel nature of the concept of mainstreaming, it remains poorly understood how the concept is operationalised in practice. The theoretical debate on this lacks a standardised and integral framework that assesses all relevant conditions that jointly determine the planning capacity to mainstream climate adaptation into spatial planning. The central research question therefore is: Which planning capacities contribute to mainstreaming of climate change adaptation into spatial planning? To answer this question, the research was divided into two phases. Firstly, an extensive literature review was conducted to develop an evaluation framework of planning capacities. Five sub-capacities were found: legal, institutional, social, resource and learning capacity. Each of the sub-conditions was given more content by identifying conditions and criteria. All concepts in the framework are treated as sensitising concepts, that is the content changed in accordance to empirical data. For the second phase in this research three projects in European cities were evaluated and compared. Analysis was based upon a content analysis of key policy and strategy documents and 31 interviews with practitioners of the planning sector, i.e. urban actors that are involved in spatial planning, such as municipal officials, property developers, governmental authorities, civil society, etc. Mutually they determine the level of mainstreaming climate adaptation into spatial planning. Regarding the five capacities the following results were found: legal capacity appeared to be important as it can set out a consistent line for climate adaptation, but it is not yet well established in the case studies. Institutional capacity is hampered by complex governance structure. Approaches towards social capacity varied greatly, but results suggest that especially the condition ‘stakeholder engagement’ is important. Resource capacity appeared to be well developed within the projects, however, on a wider city-scale and the long-term there is potential for growth. The findings show that learning capacity in a planning process might require more time and resources from the planning sector, but will be beneficial for mainstreaming of climate adaptation on the long-term. The overall conclusion is that no single sub-capacity nor condition is decisive. Moreover, there is no prescribed set of conditions to planning capacities which will certainly lead to successful mainstreaming of climate adaptation. Rather, the framework provides a comprehensible synthesis of relevant sub-capacities and conditions which can independently and mutually be studied to effectuate climate adaptation in spatial planning.