Urban planning to strengthen resilience to extreme climate events—a systematic review

Abstract

A growing body of literature shows that cities are key actors in mitigation and adaptation to climate change. However, there is less knowledge about the approaches and challenges urban planners face in building resilience. Existing studies often focus on specific planning tools in selected cities, while limited attention is given to the wider assessment of challenges and tools used in different world regions and across income classes. This paper explores how urban planning-related challenges and measures for strengthening resilience vary across city sizes, regions, and income groups based on a systematic review of scientific papers applying the ROSES standards. The first analysis included 3410 articles, and following multiple screening iterations, 398 papers were ultimately considered for in-depth review. Data extraction was supported by LLM-based software, and the results were verified through in-person checking. We find that administrative issues (institutional fragmentation and lack of cooperation) are mentioned most frequently as a challenge across regions. In contrast, land-use conflicts differ significantly between world regions, though less so between cities of different size. Differences also emerge, e.g. in terms of the use of nature-based approaches (NbA) and digital tools. NbA are more frequently discussed in the literature that refers to small and very small cities compared to megacities and large cities. NbA are not solely common in Europe, but also in Africa and Small Island States. IT and digital tools are more frequently mentioned in papers that deal with cities in high-income countries. This digital divide points to the fact that the resources available to invest in such tools and technology also depend on income levels and financial resources. Overall, the findings underscore that multi-level governance and development conditions are important factors that influence the challenges faced by urban planning and its capacity to support resilience building.