The Green Book: Adapting settlements for the future

Abstract

The Green Book is as an open-access online planning tool to support local government towards climate-resilient cities and towns in South Africa (www.greenbook.co.za). It was launched in 2019. Extensive research and development took place to establish future trends in climate change projection downscaling, hydro-meteorological hazard modelling, population growth modelling, and adaptation action development. The evidence produced was packaged into a Risk Profile Tool, an Adaptation Actions Tool and Story Maps. The Risk Profile Tool provides temporally dynamic risk profiles for each municipality in the country and covers the socio-economic vulnerability of settlements and neighbourhoods, expected development trajectories, changes in climate, and the impacts thereof on the intensity and magnitude of a number of hydro-meteorological hazards as well as important resources. The Adaptation Actions Tool offers detail on local adaptation actions relevant to settlement planning that can be implemented in response to the risks and vulnerabilities identified in risk profiles. Story Maps are used to relay the main findings and methodologies in a concise and interactive way. Together these components offer access to rigorous scientific evidence in a coherent and interactive system. The power of the Green Book lies in the distillation and communication of complex scientific evidence of climate change and its impact at locally relevant scale together with the provision of applicable adaption options. More recently, metropolitan profiles have been added to the suite of GreenBook tools. The MetroView offers nuanced, downscaled climate risk profiles for some metropolitan cities together with identifying climate risk zones.