Indicators for urban climate resilience – availability, applicability, and usefulness

As the climate crisis is widespread, causing enormous economic loss and fatalities, a comprehensive approach on assessing the resilience of urban areas is urgently needed. Urban areas accommodate 2/3 of the world's population and – due to their prevalence of built infrastructure and sealed surfaces – is especially vulnerable towards climate extremes such as heat or flooding. The past years have shown increasing intensities and frequencies in extremes, which are expected to intensify further due to climate change. Thus, the urban system needs to be transformed in a resilient way, meaning that it is able to cope with the shock of an extreme event, return to a stable state and adapt to changing framework conditions.

Resilience indicators are a useful tool for assessing and monitoring different aspects, such as hazard intensities (e.g. indicator maximum rainfall intensity per day), or how well the governance structure are set up to deal with shocks (e.g. % of public meetings dedicated to resilience in the city). Yet, not all indicators suggested by organizations, projects or norms are useful or usable for public authority. Therefore, within ClimEmpower, we compiled a comprehensive list of indicators (~500) covering multiple sectors. These were then discussed and short-listed with regional’ representatives to ensure that the selected indicators cover their needs, as well as – if possible - linked to available data and services.