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Urban Resilience in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Transformative Digitalization in European Smart Cities to Address Climate Change

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Resilient Smart Cities

Part of the book series: The Urban Book Series ((UBS))

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Abstract

Climate change has been and is still affecting every region in Europe, with varying impacts across the continent. While some cities are generally resilient to CC impacts, other cities are not necessarily as fortunate. Promoting policies that build resilience enhances cities’ capabilities to cope with acute shocks and chronic stresses, adapt well to changing climate conditions, and ultimately transform to resilient cities. Conversely, the weak or absence of urban resilience increases the vulnerability of the urban poor to risks. It is therefore imperative to rapidly enhance urban resilience practices. To date, only 26% of 885 cities in Europe have viable adaptation plans, highlighting an imbalance in the adaptation and resilience progression across countries. Although digital transformation through increased data availability and the use of digitalization instruments has the potential to improve the rate of achieving the adaptation strategies, not much has been documented in this regard. Thus, this chapter examines the potentials of digitalization in accelerating adaptation and boosting resilience in selected European cities. Case studies are analysed through a systematic literature search, and evidence of fruitful cases are presented. We conclude by discussing some challenges of digitalization and make recommendations for future works.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geospatial Analysis and Modelling (GAM) Research Laboratory, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP), 32610, Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia

    Abdul-Lateef Balogun, Abdulwaheed Tella & Shamsudeen T. Yekeen

  2. Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), United Nations University, UN Campus, Platz der Vereinten Nationen 1, 53113, Bonn, Germany

    Himanshu Shekhar

  3. Faculty of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Kaunas University of Technology, A. Mickevicius st. 37, LT-44244, Kaunas, Lithuania

    Paulina Budryte

  4. Federal University of Technology, Institute for Land and Community Resilience, Minna, Nigeria

    Olasunkanmi Habeeb Okunola

  5. Global Change Institute, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Olasunkanmi Habeeb Okunola

  6. Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Environmental Protection Division, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Teslim Abdul-Kareem

  7. College of Architecture and Planning, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, P.O. Box 1982, Dammam, 31441, Saudi Arabia

    Ismaila Rimi Abubakar

  8. Department of Geomatics Engineering Technology, Yanbu Industrial College, Yanbu, Saudi Arabia

    Yusuf A. Aina

  9. Earth, Environment and Space Division, Foresight Institute of Research and Translation, Ibadan, Nigeria

    Abdulwaheed Tella

  10. Department of Geography, Environment, and Geomatics, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada

    Shamsudeen T. Yekeen

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  1. Abdul-Lateef Balogun
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  2. Himanshu Shekhar
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hiroshima University, Higashihiroshima, Japan

    Ayyoob Sharifi

  2. ICLEI—Local Governments for Sustainability (World Secretariat), Bonn, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

    Pourya Salehi

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Balogun, AL. et al. (2022). Urban Resilience in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Transformative Digitalization in European Smart Cities to Address Climate Change. In: Sharifi, A., Salehi, P. (eds) Resilient Smart Cities. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95037-8_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95037-8_15

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