Special Issue "Climate Governance and Urban Policies"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Urban and Rural Development".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2021.

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Valentina Palermo
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
European Commission Joint Research Centre, JRC, Ispra 21027, VA, Italy
Interests: sustainable spatial planning; urban governance; climate change mitigation; climate change adaptation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent decades, climate change and sustainability have globally shaped the urban policies scene. The increasing role of cities in addressing the climate challenge by planning and implementing climate mitigation and adaptation actions at local level has been deeply transforming climate governance. The shift toward sustainable and climate urban strategies has initially shown cases of forerunning cities, which have adopted relatively new policies and practices in addressing climate change. The involvement of non-state actors and local governments has been leveraging climate actions with innovative attitudes and a concern on local specificities. Cities have frequently become the setting for experimental approaches in terms of urban governance, policies, and practices. Furthermore, cities start and support processes of peer to peer learning. Examples include transnational city networks (ICLEI, C40) and international initiatives (the Covenant of Mayors). However, although cities are engaged in effective climate actions towards decarbonization and resilience, there is an still urgent need to develop climate adaptation and mitigation strategies at local level.

This Special Issue aims at reflecting on sustainable spatial planning, innovative urban policies, climate governance, and their visible or implicit relations. We are looking for innovative submissions from various fields of knowledge that focus on the integration of adaptation and mitigation in urban policies, case studies of cities experimenting local approaches, innovative planning processes, stakeholder engagement, and multilevel governance.

Dr. Valentina Palermo
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • urban policies
  • climate governance
  • sustainable urban planning
  • climate change mitigation
  • climate change adaptation

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

Article
Fostering Self-Protection against Impacts of Heavy Rain at the Municipal Level
Sustainability 2021, 13(13), 7019; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137019 - 22 Jun 2021
Viewed by 343
Abstract
Local governments are highly relevant actors when it comes to mitigating climate change impacts such as flooding. Not only do they need to implement regulatory and infrastructural measures, but they also need to promote complementing self-protective measures at the household level. The individual [...] Read more.
Local governments are highly relevant actors when it comes to mitigating climate change impacts such as flooding. Not only do they need to implement regulatory and infrastructural measures, but they also need to promote complementing self-protective measures at the household level. The individual motivation of municipal actors to pursue climate adaptation can be important for the implementation of such measures, obviously alongside several other factors, such as financial and administrative issues. A questionnaire survey with a non-random sample of 77 local government actors from 15 of the 16 German federal states was conducted, focusing on potential key factors concerning the motivation to implement adaptation measures against hazardous impacts of heavy rain. Additionally, the perceived effectiveness and realizability of selected municipal structural measures and of activation measures promoting self-protective behavior were collected. It can be shown that the perceived realizability of adaptation measures as well as knowledge of risk and adaptation may be key factors in the motivation to implement both activation and structural measures, while motivation and implementation are only partially related. The results imply a need for the evaluation of activation measures and a need for further research on the motivation of municipal actors to implement activation measures. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate Governance and Urban Policies)
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