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Human Health and Climate Change: Leverage Points for Adaptation in Urban Environments Proust, Katrina; Newell, Barry; Brown, Helen; Capon, Anthony; Browne, Chris; Burton, Anthony; Dixon, Jane; Mu, Lisa; Zarafu, Monica

Abstract

The design of adaptation strategies that promote urban health and well-being in the face of climate change requires an understanding of the feedback interactions that take place between the dynamical state of a city, the health of its people, and the state of the planet. Complexity, contingency and uncertainty combine to impede the growth of such systemic understandings. In this paper we suggest that the collaborative development of conceptual models can help a group to identify potential leverage points for effective adaptation. We describe a three-step procedure that leads from the development of a high-level system template, through the selection of a problem space that contains one or more of the group’s adaptive challenges, to a specific conceptual model of a sub-system of importance to the group. This procedure is illustrated by a case study of urban dwellers’ maladaptive dependence on private motor vehicles. We conclude that a system dynamics approach, revolving around the collaborative construction of a set of conceptual models, can help communities to improve their adaptive capacity, and so better meet the challenge of maintaining, and even improving, urban health in the face of climate change.

Item Metadata

Title
Human Health and Climate Change: Leverage Points for Adaptation in Urban Environments
Creator
Proust, Katrina; Newell, Barry; Brown, Helen; Capon, Anthony; Browne, Chris; Burton, Anthony; Dixon, Jane; Mu, Lisa; Zarafu, Monica
Publisher
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
Date Issued
2012-06-06
Description
The design of adaptation strategies that promote urban health and well-being in the face of climate change requires an understanding of the feedback interactions that take place between the dynamical state of a city, the health of its people, and the state of the planet. Complexity, contingency and uncertainty combine to impede the growth of such systemic understandings. In this paper we suggest that the collaborative development of conceptual models can help a group to identify potential leverage points for effective adaptation. We describe a three-step procedure that leads from the development of a high-level system template, through the selection of a problem space that contains one or more of the group’s adaptive challenges, to a specific conceptual model of a sub-system of importance to the group. This procedure is illustrated by a case study of urban dwellers’ maladaptive dependence on private motor vehicles. We conclude that a system dynamics approach, revolving around the collaborative construction of a set of conceptual models, can help communities to improve their adaptive capacity, and so better meet the challenge of maintaining, and even improving, urban health in the face of climate change.
Subject
Cities; Urban health; Climate adaptation; Systems thinking; System dynamics; Conceptual models; Co-effects; Leverage points
Genre
Article
Type
Text
Language
eng
Date Available
2019-04-05
Provider
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights
CC BY 3.0
DOI
10.14288/1.0377848
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/2429/69490
Affiliation
Medicine, Faculty of; Non UBC; Population and Public Health (SPPH), School of
Citation
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 9 (6): 2134-2158 (2012)
Publisher DOI
10.3390/ijerph9062134
Peer Review Status
Reviewed
Scholarly Level
Faculty
Rights URI
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
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CC BY 3.0