Improving knowledge and management of transboundary climate risks at city level; the example of Paris

By og elv

This case study aims to improve understanding of transboundary climate change impacts that may affect the city of Paris, its urban systems and related climate adaptation and resilience capacities.

Case 10

Status report, October 2021

 

Case content

The case study developed addresses the question of transborder risks induced by climate change, with a specific focus on human migration from Senegal and towards the City of Paris. The analysis, based on the Impact Chain (IC) approach, considers the interactions and implications between hazards occurrence, exposition, vulnerability, concluding on the socio-economic consequences of climate change and adaptation responses at local level.

Research Innovations

Case study 10 resulted in the following innovations:
- Expansion of the logic of Impact Chain with inclusion of transboundary risk
- Test new methodological approaches (quantitative/qualitative) related to risk calculation
- Inclusion of co-design and co-exploration methods for improved adaptation decision-making processes
- gaining insights on this transboundary dimension of climate risk for short and long-term adaptation decision-making processes at urban scale

Study areas

Senegal and city of Paris

Stakeholders involved

Impact Chain (IC) deployment requires a mix of participatory and operational approaches. We decided to involve stakeholders all along the impact chain from Senegal to France. Thus, remote meetings were held with stakeholders to inform impact chain development and indicator selection.  Senegalese stakeholders included academics, civil servants from the Ministry of Agriculture, and researchers from CGIAR .For the city of Paris, stakeholders interviewed included academics and civil servants working for the City of Paris (adaptation division, delegation to the resilience strategy, and social action center).
In the final stage, a workshop was held under the supervision of the city of Paris to share the results of IC development and explore adaptation options.

Summary data collection

Qualitative data were collected through participatory approaches including interviews and workshops.
Quantative data were collected from various sources including local databases (APUR, Paris open data etc.), national (INSEE) and international (World bank, OECD, etc.).

Results

  1. The results from our research is fully available through the documentation made available below.
    The research conducted led to the following results:
    Expansion of the logic of Impact Chain:  the research led to design a new type of Impact Chain that could answer the challenge of integrating transboundary climate risk related to human migration. The case work led to the development of two correlated impact chains. The first impact chain (“risk sender”) models the components of the decision to migrate for rural Senegalese. The outcome of the individual arbitrage is migration (internal or international), or immobility (willing or trapped). The second impact chain (“risk receiver”) considers the integration process for international migrants, accounting for the exposure and vulnerability of Paris in multiple dimensions (economic, social, cultural, linguistic, residential).
    Test of new methodological approach: the research on implementing these ICs yielded some evidence on the advantages of using either arithmetic or geometric aggregation methods in the case of impact chains. 
    Co-production of knowledge: The main innovation here consisted in involving, on the issue of cross-border climate risks at local scales (city of Paris in our case), all the stakeholders, including in the construction of the global risk impact chain in Senegal. Thus, the triggers, the indicators and the adjoining databases were studied and selected on the two chains with the parties concerned. This constitutes an innovative approach for understanding cross-border risks at local scales.
    Local adaptation to global risk : several adaptation options at local level were highlighted as key for migrants' integration. Among them:
    1.Delivering an enabling policy environment
    2.Enhancing urban resilience
    3. Integration which refers to migrants being able to access housing, employment, having access to social services, to education or vocational training, and health services. 

Documentation

Case study lessons learned full english report

Case study lessons learned french version

Visual : simplified impact chain concept

Présentation orale (workshop adaptation, mairie de Paris)

 

Case study responsible

 

Ramboll

 

Contact

Adeline Cauchy