Climate-Adaptive City
Cape Town responds swiftly to climate change, shocks and stresses.
Cape Town’s natural assets and biological diversity are part of what makes the city a unique and desirable place to live, work and visit. However, it’s no secret that the city is also very vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. After all, in in 1488, Bartolomeu Dias called this part of the African coastline the “Cabo das Tormentas” (i.e. the “Cape of Storms”) for its relentless winter temperaments.
Today, the recent Western Cape drought has revealed just how severe the impacts of climate change can be on the metropolis. It caused significant disruption across a wide variety of Cape Town’s systems. Similar extreme climatic events are expected to become more frequent and intense in the future.
In preparation, the City has been taking steps to reduce its vulnerability and increase its climate resilience. Several long-term city-wide transformations are underway, each with unique goals, that are delivering new investments and actions each year, including the:
However, while long-term city-wide transformations are underway, shocks, including climate change in Cape Town, can strike at any time. This is why a partnering between the City government and Capetonians is being further strengthened. After all, supporting actions that build resilience relies on unity in this regard. This is why it’s not surprising that there are a number of initiatives working towards city-wide impact through combined actions taken by households, businesses and communities.
Strengthen Transport Systems & Improve Mobility
The City of Cape Town Resilience Strategy emphasises the growth of partnerships that strengthen transportation systems and improve mobility. The spatial form and social fabric of the city have been negatively affected by the legacy of apartheid urban planning and this has led to environmental impacts too. While this is continuously being rectified on a socio-economic level, climatic shocks like localised flooding and power outages, are also being addressed. For example:
- Growing partnerships with local employers to change commuter behaviour and deliver sustainable mobility.
- Collaborate with other spheres of government to ensure the safe and reliable operation of local trains.
- Leverage data and mapping applications to improve the integration of informal transportation systems.
Improve Public Spaces
The City of Cape Town Resilience Strategy also emphasises engaging communities and the private sector in efforts to further improve public spaces. This kind of place-making can inspire people to collectively re-imagine and re-invent public spaces in communities. For example:
- Growing the Urban Regeneration Programme to all parts of the city to encourage Infrastructure improvements in large urban areas like CBDs.
- Addressing social ills and creating opportunities in Manenberg through a Youth and Lifestyle Campus to increase economic prospects and decreased social ills.
- Rolling out the Precinct Management Model to multiple areas of Cape Town because precincts which are improved in a sustainable manner to make them clean, safe, functional and attractive.
- Rejuvenating our rivers and the spaces around them to create livable urban waterways which produce multiple resilience dividends, including flood attenuation, new work and recreation opportunities, improved water quality and crime reduction.
- Establishing a Transversal Public Spaces workgroup for increased private investment and collaboration in the design and use of public spaces.
- Using a resilience lens in the development of new district plans for improved robustness of district plans for the purpose of better informing public and private investment initiatives.
Build Climate Resilience in Cape Town
The City of Cape Town Resilience Strategy also emphasises building climate resilience through adaptive responses to the impacts of climate change in Cape Town. These are spread across a multitude of government, organisational, and community plans. This highlights areas that require particular focus in building climate resilience, particularly those areas of higher vulnerability identified in the context of the recent drought. For example:
- Strengthening the capacity to interpret and integrate climate impacts into planning in order to improve data and insights of likely climate change impacts and projections.
- Enhancing partnerships for improved water governance and holistic water resilience for strengthened relationships with large water users in the Western Cape Water Supply System (WCWSS) and ongoing collaboration and engagement with civil society, academic, and business partners.
- Protecting water sources by supporting the Greater Cape Town Water Fund for increased collective support by a range of stakeholders to clear alien invasive vegetation from the catchment areas.
- Protecting water sources through managed aquifer recharge for the long-term health and sustainability of the Cape Flats Aquifer.
- Creating multiple coastal management forums for empowering partnerships between coastal stakeholders to co-own risks related to impacts on the coast and surrounding infrastructure.
Improve Conditions in Informal Settlements
There are at least 204 informal settlements in Cape Town that have been established in response to rapid inward migration. The City of Cape Town is always innovating for improved conditions, service delivery, and well-being in informal settlements. The challenges of daily stresses and intermittent shocks are exponentially higher for Capetonians living in these settlements. The City provides access to basic services in informal settlements, including electricity, water and waste services. However, more initiatives are gaining momentum in areas like:
- Exploring alternative, innovative and financially feasible mechanisms of service delivery in informal settlements which are acceptable to local residents.
- Co-designing for informal settlement upgrading projects with local residents. To further empower residents of informal settlements to work in collaboration with the City government and other societal partners. This is required in order to design acceptable, safe and dignified informal settlement projects.
Contact us today if you’d like to discuss the City of Cape Town’s Resilience Strategy and particularly the elements that go into making the Mother City such a climate-adaptive metropolis.
