From Mitigation to Adaptation in Asset Management for Climate Change: A Discussion

With more than half of the world's population living in urban areas and the rate of urbanization on the increase, there is a continuous and increasing demand for infrastructure and services in these areas. In addition to this growing demand, climate change adds a whole new dimension that compels a relook at our asset management procedures for the critical urban infrastructure. For a considerable time now, mitigation strategies have played an important role in various policy decisions. There is a recent trend in the scientific, geographic, institutional, and business domains that mitigation alone cannot be seen as an effective strategy to limit our vulnerability to the causes and consequences of climate change. Adaptation strategies must also form a part of our efforts, policies, discussions, and planning procedures. In this paper, we present a discussion on how an equal importance to adaptation strategies is being advocated, in conjunction with mitigation strategies, for infrastructure. We review some relevant literature that promotes both these strategies either individually or collectively in relation to infrastructure and services.