Building a Climate-Resilient City: Transformational adaptation

The document distinguishes between incremental and transformational adaptation, arguing that the latter is necessary when historic approaches are insufficient for climate risks. It emphasizes that systemic changes to governance—prioritizing transparency, flexibility, and learning—are key to enabling transformational adaptation. The brief is part of a series developed for Edmonton and Calgary focusing on robustness, redundancy, and resourcefulness.

• Adaptation strategies for cities are categorized as either incremental, which improves existing practices, or transformational, which implements fundamentally different approaches to address the root causes of systemic vulnerability. Cities may utilize a combination of both methods based on their specific circumstances.
• Transformational adaptation is typically adopted when existing historical methods are found to be inadequate for current or future climate risks. The success of this approach is supported by governance systems that prioritize integration, flexibility, monitoring, knowledge sharing, and transparency.
• As part of a series for the cities of Edmonton and Calgary, the framework for building municipal resilience is based on three core principles: robustness (strong design), redundancy (fail-safe networks), and resourcefulness (citizen empowerment).

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} }