Building a Climate-Resilient City: Transformational adaptation

This policy brief defines transformational adaptation as a systemic approach to climate resilience that addresses root causes of vulnerability, contrasting it with incremental adaptation which improves existing practices.

• Climate change adaptation in cities can be categorized as either incremental or transformational. Incremental adaptation focuses on improving the efficiency of existing technologies, governance, and practices for risk management, whereas transformational adaptation implements fundamentally different approaches by addressing the systemic root causes of a city's vulnerability.
• Transformational adaptation is typically adopted when historic methods are found to be insufficient for current or future climate risks. The likelihood of implementing such adaptation at the appropriate time is increased by governance systems that prioritize flexibility, integration, transparency, knowledge sharing, monitoring, and continual learning.
• The 'Building a Climate-Resilient City' series, developed for the cities of Edmonton and Calgary, recommends municipal adaptation planning based on three resilience principles: resourcefulness (citizen empowerment), redundancy (fail-safe networks via extra capacity), and robustness (strong design).

APA

Parry,, J.-E. (2017). Building a Climate-Resilient City: Transformational adaptation. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/publications/brief/building-climate-resilient-city-transformational-adaptation

Chicago

Parry,, Jo-Ellen. Building a Climate-Resilient City: Transformational adaptation. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2017. https://www.iisd.org/publications/brief/building-climate-resilient-city-transformational-adaptation.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Parry, |first1=Jo-Ellen |title=Building a Climate-Resilient City: Transformational adaptation |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=24 April 2017 |url=https://www.iisd.org/publications/brief/building-climate-resilient-city-transformational-adaptation |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{parry2017building, author = {Parry,, Jo-Ellen}, title = {{Building a Climate-Resilient City: Transformational adaptation}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2017}, month = apr, url = {https://www.iisd.org/publications/brief/building-climate-resilient-city-transformational-adaptation}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }