Supporting urban climate adaptation governance through citizen sensing

Abstract

Cities are particularly exposed to risks arising from climate change, and therefore have to adapt continuously to changing conditions that affect citizens' health and wellbeing. As the community level is where climate change impacts are most experienced, successful adaptation necessarily implies the broad support of affected communities, including the active involvement of citizens in assessing and responding to climate risks. Yet, many studies have confirmed that urban climate adaptation is in its early stages. Several obstacles have been found to hinder the successful governance of climate adaptation in cities, including the limited availability of site-specific information with high spatial and temporal resolution to support decision-making processes, lack of citizen engagement, and difficulties in communication between individuals and institutions. This chapter explores how an approach based on citizen sensing (CS), defined as citizens acting as sensors to collect and send information using e.g. mobile devices or participatory online platforms, can help to overcome these issues and contribute to the governance of urban climate adaptation. Drawing from the experience of the European research project Citizen Sensing, which has further developed the CS approach by proposing a digital two-way communication system between citizens and relevant institutions, we discuss how and to what extent CS can increase engagement by citizens, while enhancing the preparedness of authorities for taking effective risk management actions and strengthening communication to increase urban climate resilience.