How are UIA projects contributing to building resilient cities, adapting to the climate emergency?

In our densely built cities, the scarcity of available spaces for new uses adds another level of complexity to implement solutions for climate adaptation. Although integrating such solutions within the urban fabric demands space, valuable opportunities arise when cities re-think the use and the design of their building stock and their open spaces. 

Cities face climate extremes - defined as the occurrence of a value of a weather or climate variable above (or below) a threshold value – with devastating impacts on the safety and the lives of citizens, the city infrastructures, the private properties, the urban environment, and the local economy. At the same time, climate projections for the next decades indicate that climate extremes will be of higher frequency, duration, and strength. 

How citizens live and behave and how public and private actions interact can enforce adaptation to climate change or – in some case – hamper it.