Adaptation to Incremental Climate Stress in Urban Regions: Tailoring an Approach to Large Cities in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Research into adaptation strategies to climate change has become a point of great interest for today’s urban environmental planners. At the same time, addressing adaptation to climate change in Sub-Saharan cities is an ethical and epistemological challenge. This article presents an approach, developed in the context of a scientific collaboration between an Italian and a Tanzanian university, to adaptation planning in the coastal peri-urban areas of the city of Dar es Salaam. After situating the research within the international discourse on responses to global warming, the specific spatial context of the study is introduced, together with the assumptions that derive from the interpretive key: the adaptive capacity of inhabitants. The three theoretical pillars upon which the approach is based are also explored: uncertainty as an opportunity for an unfettered vision of the city’s future; the centrality of incremental environmental stress in assessment of vulnerability to extreme weather and climate events; and crossing boundaries within science and between science and society for an effective and equitable definition of the problem.