Climate change poses new challenges to urban and regional development, and consequently places new demands on planning instruments and methods used to implement measures and concepts to adapt to climate change. Uncertainty within climate scenarios and the long-time horizon of the scenarios are considered as the essential challenges. This research responds to these challenges within an urban context by analyzing the existing planning instruments and methods.  The aim is to determine if such planning instruments are capable of supporting adaptation in urban regions to climate change. The pivotal question is if regional climate scenarios can be integrated into existing instruments to contribute to a sustainable development.

Meike Albers, Dipl.-Ing. Spatial planning, meike.albers[at]hcu-hamburg.de