Towards a new neighbourhood-scale climate risk-adaptation approach

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Rigoni, Carolina and Oliveira, Sonja and Romice, Ombretta and Moreno-Rangel, Alejandro and Chatzimichali, Anna (2026) Towards a new neighbourhood-scale climate risk-adaptation approach. Buildings & Cities, 7 (1). 360–377. ISSN 2632-6655 (https://doi.org/10.5334/bc.725)

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Abstract

A new multimodal analytical approach is proposed to assess, act upon and predict climate risks that materialise differently across neighbourhood contexts. Current methods for assessing neighbourhood responses to climate risks tend to be dominated by either city-level adaptive capacity frameworks or building-level adaptation strategies. These approaches often overlook the empirically grounded and integrative potential of the neighbourhood scale. Neighbourhoods, particularly their capacity for collective action, which is linked to urban form, play a critical role in fostering adaptive behaviour. Despite this recognition, analytical approaches examining adaptation responses to climate risk at this level remain underdeveloped. Using a staged integrative approach, the study involved an initial scoping literature review of 494 documents, from which sources (n = 77) published over the past two decades were selected. This process revealed key environmental, spatial and social dimensions of neighbourhood adaptation in relation to climate risk. This proposed approach enables a richer understanding of climate risk by shifting from simple capabilities at the meso-scale to dynamic adaptive systems. Without this lens, local responses to climate risks remain standardised, lacking the diversity and dynamism required at context-specific levels.

ORCID iDs

Rigoni, Carolina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4661-5970, Oliveira, Sonja ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-6752-680X, Romice, Ombretta ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5776-5632, Moreno-Rangel, Alejandro ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6405-4233 and Chatzimichali, Anna;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)