How to tackle complexity in urban climate resilience? Negotiating climate science, adaptation and multi-level governance in India

financially incapacitated cities would respond to climate impacts, particularly in the develop- ing world [5–7]. These impacts would be quite severe in Asia, given its urban societies are densely packed, vastly exposed to natural elements while possessing limited capabilities [8– 10]. The last decade has witnessed a growing role of cities in the global energy, environment and sustainability policies [3, 11–14], yet the effective pursuit of urban resilience in developing contexts lacks sufficient scientific rigor and policy clarity at the implementation level. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in its last two scien- tific assessments, most notably in AR5 [3], exhaustively covered global policies and scholarly literature on how urban systems worldwide are combating climate impacts, the intervening barriers and knowledge gaps. Despite the original focus on mitigation in science-policy dis- course in urban systems [15, 16], latest bibliometric analysis of urban climate change literature shows that adaptation is now receiving considerable attention [17]. The local climate plans usually identify adaptation pathways for specific climate hazards in an urban sector for e.g. floods. An assessment of climate action tools relevant to urban areas reports that 39% urban climate tools are adaptation centric [18]. In practice, adaptation and resilience accounts for a marginal 12.1% of the global urban ini- tiatives [19], although the need of having a science-based policy approach in greater under-

standing urban vulnerabilities and shaping appropriate responses has been constantly emphasized [20–22]. There is a notable ambiguity and complexity that inhibits a methodical approach in identifying public management of urban resilience measures. The complexity is due to intersection of large number of distinct variables in climate geoscience (precipitation and temperature anomalies at different locations, RCPs, timeline), adaptation alternatives (approach, priority, intervention level) and urban governance (functional mandate, institu- tional capacity, and plans & policies). This creates an ambiguity in answering the following key research-policy questions: (a) what are the downscaled climate scenarios and how these per- petuate regional vulnerabilities? (b) how to identify and prioritize adaptation options across different sectors?, (c) how to strategically integrate climate actions with multi-level policies and governance, particularly at the urban level.? The complex situation necessitates a planned and methodical approach in devising a cli- mate-resilient urban future [23] that underscores the process of ‘negotiation’ to situate, ground and operationalize ‘resilience’. The concept puts particular accent on the procedural orienta- tion of resilience–it is not something that ‘exists’ and that we can uniformly define, rather it is a process that requires engagement with diverse actors and interests, both in specific places and across scales. We internalize this process of engagement in the research methodology by

examining how disparate and complex knowledge and information in the inter-disciplines of climate geoscience, adaptation, and policy & governance be systematically processed to arrive at urban resilience measures. We test this by mapping mid-term and long-run climate scenar- ios (2050 & 2080) in a rapidly developing context like India as a case to map regional climate impacts, evaluate plausible adaptation measures to negotiate suitable urban resilience mecha- nisms within the current multi-level governance system. Unlike more technocratic (top- down) approaches in evaluating climate responses, our approach engages with their diverse interests, mandates, policies and capacities of local stakeholders to deal with climate resilience issues evident across the national and urban landscape. Climate change impacts in India are already being felt and impacting human life and liveli- hoods of many. Hundreds of people are losing their lives and falling ill due to the intensive heat waves during summers every year [24]. The population in Indian cities is vulnerable to floods that are detrimental to the economy, lives, and livelihoods, and thousands are being ren- dered homeless while losing their possessions and assets [7]. The intense rain and extensive flash flood episodes in Mumbai, Srinagar, Chennai, Bengaluru, etc. in the last one decade have PLOS ONE Negotiating complexity of climate science, adaptation and multi-level governance in urban resilience PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253904 July 1, 2021 2 / 21