Climate change and extremes: implications on city livability and associated health risks across the globe

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCCSM-07-2021-0078
• Published date: 07 December 2022
• Date: 07 December 2022
• Pages: 1-19
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Environmental issues,Climate change
• Author: Walter Leal Filho,Liza Tuladhar,Chunlan Li,Abdul-Lateef Babatunde Balogun,Marina Kovaleva,Ismaila Rimi Abubakar,Hossein Azadi,Felix Kwabena Kwabena Donkor

Climate change and extremes:

implications on city livability

and associated health risks across

the globe

Walter Leal Filho,Liza Tuladhar,Chunlan Li,

Abdul-Lateef Babatunde Balogun,Marina Kovaleva,

Ismaila Rimi Abubakar,Hossein Azadi and

Felix Kwabena Kwabena Donkor

(Author affiliations can be found at the end of the article)

Abstract

Purpose –As global warming intensifies, climatic conditions are changing dramatically, potentially

affecting specific businesses and cities’livability. The temperature increase in cities significantly affects

urban residents whose percentage is to reach about 70% by 2050. This paper aimed at highlighting the

climate change risks in cities, particularly focusing on the threats to people’s health due to a continuous

temperatureincrease.

Design/methodology/approach –This study was conducted in three main steps. First,the literature

review on the effects of climate change, particularly on the continuous temperature rise in cities, was

conducted based on the publications retrieved from PubMed, Science Direct, Google Scholar and Research

Gate. Second, the survey was conducted for the sample citiesfor one month. Third, the questionnaire was

used to assesspossible climate change threats to the livabilityof cities.

Findings –The findings showed that urban areas are usually warmer than the surrounding rural areas,

mainly due to the urban heat islandeffect, causing more hot days in metropolitan areas comparedto rural

areas. This paper outlines somemitigation and adaptation measures, which can be implemented to improve

the livabilityin cities, their sustainability andthe well-being of their populations.

Originality/value –This study reports on the climate change impacts on the health and livability of 15

cities, in industrialized and developing countries. It examines the average and maximum temperature and

relative humidity of each city and its correlation with their livability. It was complemented by a survey

focused on 109 citiesfrom Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America and Oceania.

Keywords Extreme weather events, Rural areas, Increasing temperatures, Health condition,

Food security, Literature review

Paper type Research paper

© Walter Leal Filho, Liza Tuladhar, Chunlan Li, Abdul-Lateef Babatunde Balogun, Marina Kovaleva,

Ismaila Rimi Abubakar, Hossein Azadi and Felix Kwabena Kwabena Donkor. Published by Emerald

Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0)

licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for

both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication

and authors. The full terms of this licence maybe seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/

legalcode

This research is funded by the Interdisciplinary Expert Centre for Climate Change and Health

(IECCCH) at HAW Hamburg.

Climate

change and

extremes

1

Received10 July 2021

Revised24 January 2022

8 May2022

18September 2022

Accepted5 October 2022

InternationalJournal of Climate

ChangeStrategies and

Management

Vol.15 No. 1, 2023

pp. 1-19

EmeraldPublishing Limited

1756-8692

DOI 10.1108/IJCCSM-07-2021-0078

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/1756-8692.htm

1. Introduction

To meet the 1.5°C and 2.0°C temperature control goals set out in the Paris Agreement,

countries implemented development strategies such as emissions reduction, energy and

industrial structure reform and others to strengthen the urban system’s resilience and

ability to mitigate and adaptto climate change(Alijani et al., 2020). Along with urban growth

and environmental change, urban administrators, inhabitants and scholars have been

paying more attention to urban livability. livability encompasses a variety of factors,

including a healthy environment as wellas equal access to employment, housing and other

public services for city residents (Cui et al., 2018). It is both a normative and an analytical

tool, with different definitions depending on time, space and assessment goals. Urban

livability is a key concept for improvingurban resilience to a range of shocks and stresses

(Allam et al.,2020). In the context of global climate change and continuous urbanization,

correlation studies between urban livability and interacting components such as climate

change, tourism development or hazardous pollutants are especially significant. Globally,

urban livability research methodologies primarily comprise complete index evaluation,

questionnaire survey and geospatial analysis, among others. For example, Zanella et al.

(2015) developed a comprehensive evaluation method for urban livability based on both

human well-being and environmental effect using the data envelopment model and

directional distance function. Kovacs-Györi et al. (2020) found that urban morphology and

traffic-related problems had the largest influence onresidential satisfaction in a research of

over 400 people from across the world to assess their urban environment based on

significant living elements. Haddad et al. (2020) used climate models to investigate the

impact of urban architectural changes on decreasing urban ambient temperature. The

advancement of big data, remote sensing and geographic information technology has

assisted in the modernizationof urban livability research methodologies in recent years. The

purpose of this researchwas to conduct an in-depth survey to assess the livability of cities.

Various studies (Mazdiyasni et al.,2017;Mitchell et al.,2016;Mora et al., 2017) have

shown that increasing temperatures pose a serious threat to general public health and can

also be directly related to high mortalityand morbidity rates. This is especially true among

vulnerable groups of people (Åström et al.,2011). Heatwaves have a great impact on people

residing near cities and cause the impairment of human performance. General work

productivity and the ability to work are reduced by heatwaves (Zander et al., 2015). A

significant number of large cities around the world are located near coastlines. It is

estimated that more than 600 million people live in coastal areas that are 10meters or less

above sea level. Moreover, nearly 40% of the world’s population,or about 2.4 billion people,

live 100 kilometers off the coast. Hence, rising sea levels are a major risk factor for climate

change. As the population livingnear coastal cities grows, they are exposed to threats such

as coastal floods, stormsand hurricanes (Chowdhury et al., 2021).

These severe events can affect urban residents through casualties, injuries and damage

to property and infrastructure. Heavy rainfall that accompanies a storm can cause flooding

in the cities.

Climate change is a major risk in the public health sector. There is an increasingnumber

of inter-linkages between climate change and health, showing serious threats to human

health (USGCRP, 2016). It is shown to either exacerbate pre-existing health conditions or

introduce new ones. Table 1 shows some of the different impacts on public health from

climate change-relatedstressors.

There is a variety of previous research on urban livability in cities, with regionalized

urban livability assessmentand impact factor analysis being the most popular. Wang et al.

(2011) compared Beijing’s urban livability to that of other worldwide cities and concluded

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