Urban Planning and Climate Change



[Name of the Institute]

Section 2 - Literature Review

Chapter 2.5

Australia has become the coastal area that is vulnerable to the impacts by expected sea-levels rises and urban development in the near future. More than 85% of the Australian urban population is living in low-elevation coastal zones (especially those living within horizon of 50km) that call for immediate and suitable actions to be taken in form constructing sea walls and avoiding development in the expected sea level rise areas. Similarly, the expected increase in expansion of urban areas, large amounts of roads and car parking demands, have all anticipated further increasing the circumspect heat and hence calling for effective actions such as emission of greenhouse gas. This also extensively requires urban planner and government to take preventive measures and legislations such as BCA and NCC to guide in production of energy efficient products.

The current literature put great emphasis on the role of cities and towns with relation to these measures, as they represent a large population of people that are highly critical and vulnerable towards the negative climate change. In essence, urban planning is increasingly considered as an important strategic tool for managing cities well planned for arrangement of population density in cities as well as help cities in preventing from possible shocks of the climate change in form of greenhouse gas and waste being produced. The current literature also shed light on evidences that lack of good planning could seriously lead to negative climate change as supported by the fact that 2001 Tasmania hit majority costal areas of Australia having high density of population.

Urban planning considerations are also significant considering the fact that every city has unique vulnerability with relation to impact of sea level rise due to location and development of the city. Additionally, with climate changes occurring in Australia, water resources of Australia are also heavily impacted in form of stream flows, precipitation, and run-off resulting in water shortage as well as rainfalls and snowfalls challenges for the country.

Chapter 3.5

The available literature suggested that adaption to planning for climate change is a growing challenge in Australia. The significant challenge that hinders the effective management and planning to spectacular climate changes is associated with lack of expertise, knowledge and skills among urban planners. It becomes very challenging for planners to integrate the speedy growing cities and regional urban growth centres with climate change in vibrant framework to mitigate the effects of climate change as transforming major to improve climate change could take the time of 15-20 years or even longer for the implementation. Eventually, the business and government decisions that are currently taking place without considering factor of climate change would be seriously affected by the climate change shocks.

Communication remains the strong challenge for local government's climate adaption strategies. In essence, lack of knowledge, lack of fund and lack of National Urban Policy Framework indicated high sensitive barriers with relation to planning for the climate change adaption. As mentioned, funding remains the ...