Coastal Cities at Risk: Building Capacity for Managing Climate Change in Coastal Megacities (CCar)

Funding

International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)
International Research Initiative on Adaptation to Climate Change (IRIACC)

Project time

2011 - 2016

Principal investigators

Gordon McBean, University of Western Ontario, Canada
Anond Snidvongs, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

Project team (UWO Engineering)

Slobodan P. Simonovic, Professor, contact person, email
Angela Peck, PhD Student, contact person, email
M. Amin Owrangi, PhD Student
Nick Agam, MESc Student

Project description

Many low-lying coastal, river-delta mega-cities, already stressed by rapid population growth and economic, social, health and cultural difficulties, are now increasingly vulnerable due to climate change. The overall objective of the Coastal Cities at Risk (CCaR): Building Adaptive Capacity for Managing Climate Change in Coastal Megacities Program is to develop the knowledge base and enhance the capacity of mega-cities to successfully adapt to and when necessary cope with risks posed by the effects of climate change, including sea level rise, in the context of urban growth and development. The CCaR project will take an interdisciplinary approach involving natural, engineering, socio-political-economic and health scientists and will build upon and partner with leading programs: START; Integrated Research on Disaster Risk; and other Canadian and international projects. The cities (Bangkok, Lagos, Manila, Vancouver) were chosen to: have a range of climate-weather, socio-cultural-economic characteristics; be representative of other cities; and provide enhanced research opportunities through ongoing efforts. The outputs will be: new integrated knowledge on climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction strategies and their socioeconomic- health implications; integrated, interdisciplinary simulation models to develop, test and validate knowledge-based adaptation actions; and increased numbers of highly-qualified people, both academic and practitioners, through knowledge mobilization and translation. Workshops and follow on projects with partners will result in this knowledge and capacity being transferred to a broad selection of communities in Canada, Africa and Asia. CCaR Program outcomes will include enhanced adaptation and risk reduction capacity, better planned safer cities and reduced socioeconomic impacts as the climate changes.

Project Publications

None.

Project Papers

Owrangi, M.A, Lannigan, R., and Simonovic, S.P. (2013) Assessment of climate change health impacts for coastal megacities, In Proceedings CSCE 21st Canadian Hydrotechnical Conference, Banff, Alberta, May 14 - 17 2013.

Project Reports

Angela Peck, Christian Neuwirth and Slobodan P. Simonovic (2014). Coupling System Dynamics with Geographic Information Systems: CCaR Project Report Water Resources Research Report no. 086, Facility for Intelligent Decision Support, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, London, Ontario, Canada, 60 pages. ISBN: (print) 978-0-7714-3069-5; (online) 978-0-7714-3070-1.

Angela Peck and Slobodan P. Simonovic (2013). Coastal Cities at Risk (CCaR): Generic System Dynamics Simulation Models for Use with City Resilience Simulator. Water Resources Research Report no. 083, Facility for Intelligent Decision Support, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, London, Ontario, Canada, 55 pages. ISBN: (print) 978-0-7714-3024-4; (online) 978-0-7714-3025-1.

Project Presentations

Spatial Dynamic Resilience to Climate Change Caused Natural Disasters: Quantification Framework, Peck, A. and Simonovic, S. P., GiT4NDM keynote presentation, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, October 2013.

Dynamic Resilience to Climate Change Caused Natural Disasters in Coastal Megacities - Quantification Framework, Simonovic, S. P., China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (IWHR) - invited lecture, Beijing, China, April 2013.

Dynamic Resilience to Climate Change Caused Natural Disasters in Coastal Megacities - Quantification Framework, Simonovic, S. P., Department of Hydraulic Engineering - invited lecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, April 2013.

Modeling Dynamic Resilience to Climate Change Caused Natural Disasters, Simonovic, S.P., Friday Forum, Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction - invited lecture, Toronto, October 2012.

Understanding City Resilience through System Dynamics Simulation, Simonovic, S.P., Advanced Institute on Data for Coastal Cities at Risk, IRDR International Centre of Excellence, Academy of Sciences - invited lecture, Taipei, Taiwan, October 2012.

Health impacts of Floods due to climate change in coastal cities, Owrangi, M.A., Lannigan, R., Simonovic, S.P., and McBean,G., Transcending Borders Global Health Conference, London, Ontario, Canada, April 27-29 2012.

Climate change and Human Health Risks, Owrangi, M.A., Lannigan, R., and Simonovic, S.P., Coastal Cities at Risk Workshop, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, March 7 2012.