This section provides a list of the peer reviewed publications that emerged from this research project. The majority of these publications are open access (please click on the titles for access):
Cities, Settlements and Key Infrastructure
Authors:
Dodman, DM, Hayward, B, Pelling, M, et al (Luna Khirfan)
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2022
Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
The Working Group II contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report assesses the impacts of climate change, looking at ecosystems, biodiversity, and human communities at global and regional levels. It also reviews vulnerabilities and the capacities and limits of the natural world and human societies to adapt to climate change.
Against Climate Haussmannization: Transformation Through and in Urban Design
Authors:
Zachary Lamb & Luna Khirfan
Journal of Planning Literature, 2022
Abstract
Urban design is an essential component of planning for climate transformation. However, the concept of transformation in urban design is complicated by the problematic legacy of design-led mega-projects. Such projects, often called Haussmannization, are criticized as inattentive to existing landscape, built, and social environments. While corrective movements have partially addressed criticisms of Haussmannization, they can also hinder justice-centered climate transformation, by empowering already powerful interests to defend status quo conditions or justifying inequity-deepening interventions in the name of climate action, a phenomenon we label climate Haussmannization. We present a schema connecting transformative urban design with procedural, distributive, and recognitional justice.
Distributive Justice and Urban Form Adaptation to Flooding Risks: Spatial Analysis to Identify Toronto's Priority Neighborhoods
Authors:
Niloofar Mohtat & Luna Khirfan
Front. Sustain. Cities, 2022
Abstract
Empirical evidence points out that urban form adaptation to climate-induced flooding events—through interventions in land uses and town plans (i. e., street networks, building footprints, and urban blocks)—might exacerbate vulnerabilities and exposures, engendering risk inequalities and climate injustice. We develop a multicriteria model that draws on distributive justice's interconnections with the risk drivers of social vulnerabilities, flood hazard exposures, and the adaptive capacity of urban form (through land uses and town plans). The model assesses “who” is unequally at-risk to flooding events, hence, should be prioritized in adaptation responses; “where” are the high-risk priority areas located; and “how” can urban form adaptive interventions advance climate justice in the priority areas. We test the model in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where there are indications of increased rainfall events and disparities in social vulnerabilities. Our methodology started with surveying Toronto-based flooding experts who assigned weights to the risk drivers based on their importance. Using ArcGIS, we then mapped and overlayed the risk drivers' values in all the neighborhoods across the city based on the experts' assigned weights. Accordingly, we identified four high-risk tower communities with old infrastructure and vulnerable populations as the priority neighborhoods for adaptation interventions within the urban form. These four neighborhoods are typical of inner-city tower blocks built in the 20th century across North America, Europe, and Asia based on modern architectural ideas. Considering the lifespan of these blocks, this study calls for future studies to investigate how these types of neighborhoods can be adapted to climate change to advance climate justice.
Improving the validity and credibility of the sociocultural valuation of ecosystem services in Amman, Jordan
Authors:
Megan Peck & Luna Khirfan
Ecological Economics, Volume 189, 2021, 107111
Abstract
Notwithstanding the increased interest in, and development of, sociocultural valuation methods, the structure and replicability of these methods' procedures are critiqued. To overcome this, we develop a theoretical framework based on deliberation, local ecological knowledge, and quantified values that we operationalize by adapting a conventional Q-method (a mixed-methods research approach) into a deliberative process by combining it with the qualitative focus group method. We empirically test this method in Amman, Jordan by analyzing how local experts, based on their local ecological knowledge, value urban water features amid severe water scarcity. By weighing the local experts' competing values to better understand polarized and consensus views, our results reveal two juxtaposing opinions regarding the conception of Amman's urban surface waters. Decision makers can use these findings to set management priorities and/or make landscape/policy interventions that reduce the likelihood of stakeholder conflict. We also recommend that the Greater Amman Municipality should integrate nature-based solutions (e.g., stream daylighting) in future decision making to capitalize on urban ecosystem services, while maintaining a high degree of human health and safety (e.g., from climatic hazards). Deliberative Q-method is adaptable to different research topics seeking to understand social preferences amid complex urban realities and heterogeneous populations.
The climate justice pillars vis-à-vis urban form adaptation to climate change: A review
Authors:
Niloofar Mohtat & Luna Khirfan
Urban Climate Volume 39, 2021, 100951
Abstract
Indications point to exacerbated socio-economic inequalities and/or the emergence of new ones from climate-adaptive interventions in urban form, such as green and blue infrastructure (GBI), adaptive land uses, and urban design measures. We combine a systematic review and content analysis to review 136 peer-reviewed articles (published between 2008 and 2020) on urban climate justice in adaptation in order to: (1) review the emergence of the discourse on climate justice's pillars (i.e., distributive, procedural, and recognitional justice) vis-à-vis urban climate adaptation; (2) investigate the correlations between climate justice and the adaptive urban form interventions (GBI, adaptive land uses, and urban design measures); and (3) identify the spatial and scalar connections between the climate justice pillars and the adaptive urban form interventions. The findings reveal several trends, including: a deficit of empirical studies that deploy the climate justice pillars for assessing adaptive urban form interventions; an overemphasis on normative suggestions and/or critiques without clarifying “how” to advance climate justice; a dearth of urban design discussions on climate justice; a particular lack of connections between recognitional justice and urban form; and last, a dearth of studies that investigate the justice outcomes of adaptive urban form interventions across multiple spatial and temporal scales.
Reading an Urban Palimpsest: How the Gradual Loss of an Urban Stream Impacts Urban Form's Connections and Ecosystem Functions
Authors:
Luna Khirfan & Niloofar Mohtat & Ben Daub
Front. Sustain. Cities, 2021
Abstract
Fluvial reclamation to facilitate urban development leads to culverting, hence, a loss of urban streams. Using the palimpsest analogy, we examine how the Amman Stream in Amman (Jordan) historically provided regulatory and socio-cultural ecosystem services through its socio-spatial (longitudinal, lateral, and vertical) connections. We then explore the impact of the stream's culverting, partially in 1967 then completely in 1997, on these connections and, consequently, on ecosystem services. To overcome data paucity, our methodology relied on constructing spatial data by georeferencing and digitizing aerial photos and satellite images (from 1953, 1975, 1992, and 2000) using ArcGIS. We augmented our data with archival research (historic and contemporary documents and maps), an online survey among Amman's residents, and in situ observations and photography. The results reveal striking contrasts between the historic and contemporary configuration of urban form vis-à-vis the Amman Stream. Throughout its early urban history during the Classical and early Islamic periods, the urban form elements reflected reverence and prudence toward the Amman Stream as manifested in the investment in water infrastructure and the alignment of thoroughfares, civic monuments, and bridges that collectively capitalized on the land relief (the strath) and established strong connections with the Amman Stream, maximizing, in the process, its regulatory and socio-cultural services. In contrast, the contemporary urban form replaced the stream with car-oriented roads, hence, eradicated its regulatory services and replaced its socio-spatial connections with urban socio-economic and cultural fissures. Accordingly, we propose to daylight (de-culvert) the Amman Stream to restore its regulatory and socio-cultural services and its socio-spatial connections. We substantiate the feasibility of daylighting through: (1) morphological analysis that reveals that roads cover most of the stream; (2) the survey's findings that indicate public support; and (3) the cascading benefits for the larger watershed in a water insecure region.
Deliberative Q-method: A combined method for understanding the ecological value of urban ecosystem services and disservices
Authors:
Luna Khirfan & Megan Peck
MethodsX, Volume 8, 2021, 101547
Abstract
There is a need, in the ecosystem valuation literature to compliment the economic methods with sociocultural valuation methods that capture and facilitate a better understanding nuanced social and cultural values that are difficult to measure. Yet, sociocultural valuation methods are often critiqued for their lack of structured and replicable procedures and for often maintaining limited internal research validity. Accordingly, this paper demonstrates the development and application of a mixed-methods valuation approach to better recognize non- use social and cultural values by integrating the triad of deliberation, local ecological knowledge, and value quantification. We operationalized this method in Amman, Jordan where we analyzed how local experts value, based on their local ecological knowledge, the ecosystem services supplied by the City’s urban water features (fountains, ponds, and streams). We combine the conventional Q-method and focus group to yield a group deliberative Q-method. The deliberative Q-method facilitates a structured valuation framework. The deliberative Q-method method produces rich qualitative data. The rigorous statistical analysis of deliberative Q-method improves internal validity and streamlines qualitative data coding. The rigorous statistical analysis of deliberative Q-method weighs competing values to better understand polarized and consensus views.
Charlottetown’s Climate Adaptation: Reclaiming Land ‘from’ or ‘for’ Water?
Authors:
Luna Khirfan & Hadi El-Shayeb
A chapter in Fadi Masoud (Ed.), Terra_Sorta_Firma: Reclaiming the Littoral Gradient (pp. 246-257). Barcelona: Aktar Publishers. 2021
Introduction
In September 2003, Hurricane Juan slammed the Maritime Provinces in Canada’s east (Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia) causing nearly $300 million in infrastructure damages and a loss of eight lives (21). In fact, data over the past 20 years reveal that storm surge events have caused substantial property damage in Canada’s Maritime provinces (21) while also increasing their vulnerability to other climate change impacts such as erosion and subsidence (12, 20). In Charlottetown, the capital of Prince Edward Island, some of the city’s reclaimed land areas are those most impacted by intense weather patterns, exacerbated by climate change. Over decades, the island’s waterfront wharves have been subjected to intense storm surges with destruction of private properties including restaurants and yacht infrastructure (5, 8, 19), while future models based on climate change trends forecast even more flood surges and property loss (9, 10). Yet, despite this in August 2013, the construction of the PEI Convention Centre was completed on reclaimed land and has since experienced occasional basement flooding.
Although initially land reclamation acquired land from water through draining and levelling for agricultural purposes (e.g., for flood control, drainage, and irrigation), it expanded since the 1940s due to the combination of advances in construction technologies and increase in urbanization demands for housing, industrial, and commercial functions (13). Currently, seas and river coastlines are home to most of the world metropolises while predictions forecast that the population of coastal cities will double from 200 million people in 2006 to 400 million people in 2026 to 2036 (11). Such an increase simultaneously places additional demands for reclaiming land from water for urbanization but raises concerns about their vulnerability in the age of climate change.
While land reclaimed from the sea and coast is most common in the discourse, we argue that an often-overlooked type is fluvial reclamation –i.e., the reclamation of land from urban streams and rivers by culverting them, and diverting them into underground pipes (17: IV). Akin to coastal land reclamation, fluvial land reclamation facilitates land development over the culverted or channeled urban streams and rivers. This was the case in Brighton, Charlottetown’s western neighbourhood where Governor’s Pond and a connected stream existed before the latter was completely culverted and buried underground, Governor’s Pond significantly reduced in size, and their lands reclaimed for urban development. This reclamation is currently the part of the city that is regularly inundated during intense rain fall and storm surge events (5). Accordingly, it is inevitable to ask; how do the fluvial and the coastal land reclamations of Charlottetown’s stream and along its waterfront impact its urban resilience especially in our contemporary era of anthropogenic climate change? How can the urban form of a coastal city with extensive land reclamation like Charlottetown be adapted to withstand the impacts of climate change? And most importantly, what do the lessons from Charlottetown offer to other fluvial and coastal land reclamations in cities around the globe?
The climate justice pillars vis-à-vis urban form adaptation to climate change: A review
Authors:
Niloofar Mohtat & Luna Khirfan
Journal:
Urban Climate, Volume 39, 2021, 100951
Abstract
Indications point to exacerbated socio-economic inequalities and/or the emergence of new ones from climate-adaptive interventions in urban form, such as green and blue infrastructure (GBI), adaptive land uses, and urban design measures. We combine a systematic review and content analysis to review 136 peer-reviewed articles (published between 2008 and 2020) on urban climate justice in adaptation in order to: (1) review the emergence of the discourse on climate justice’s pillars (i.e., distributive, procedural, and recognitional justice) vis-`a-vis urban climate adaptation; (2) investigate the correlations between climate justice and the adaptive urban form interventions (GBI, adaptive land uses, and urban design measures); and (3) identify the spatial and scalar connections between the climate justice pillars and the adaptive urban form interventions. The findings reveal several trends, including: a deficit of empirical studies that deploy the climate justice pillars for assessing adaptive urban form interventions; an overemphasis on normative suggestions and/or critiques without clarifying “how” to advance climate justice; a dearth of urban design discussions on climate justice; a particular lack of connections between recognitional justice and urban form; and last, a dearth of studies that investigate the justice outcomes of adaptive urban form interventions across multiple spatial and temporal scales.
Improving the validity and credibility of the sociocultural valuation of ecosystem services in Amman, Jordan
Authors:
Megan Peck & Luna Khirfan
Journal:
Ecological Economics, Volume 189, 2021, 107111
Abstract
Notwithstanding the increased interest in, and development of, sociocultural valuation methods, the structure and replicability of these methods' procedures are critiqued. To overcome this, we develop a theoretical framework based on deliberation, local ecological knowledge, and quantified values that we operationalize by adapting a conventional Q-method (a mixed-methods research approach) into a deliberative process by combining it with the qualitative focus group method. We empirically test this method in Amman, Jordan by analyzing how local experts, based on their local ecological knowledge, value urban water features amid severe water scarcity. By weighing the local experts' competing values to better understand polarized and consensus views, our results reveal two juxtaposing opinions regarding the conception of Amman's urban surface waters. Decision makers can use these findings to set management priorities and/or make landscape/policy interventions that reduce the likelihood of stakeholder conflict. We also recommend that the Greater Amman Municipality should integrate nature-based solutions (e.g., stream daylighting) in future decision making to capitalize on urban ecosystem services, while maintaining a high degree of human health and safety (e.g., from climatic hazards). Deliberative Q-method is adaptable to different research topics seeking to understand social preferences amid complex urban realities and heterogeneous populations.
The New Climate Urbanism: A Physical, Social, and Behavioural Framework
Author:
Luna Khirfan
Chapter 11 in V. Castán Broto, E. Robin, & A. While (Eds.), Climate Urbanism: Towards a Critical Research Agenda (pp. 171-193). Cham: Springer International Publishing. 2020
Introduction
Climatic uncertainty, entrenched power structures, established priorities, and financial and logistical difficulties render it challenging to adapt the built form of human settlements to climate change (Kates, Travis, & Wilbanks, 2012; Pelling, O’Brien, & Matyas, 2015). While most of the climate adaptation discourse underscores social learning, for instance through governance processes (see for example: Burch, Shaw, Dale, & Robinson, 2014; Castán Broto, Trencher, Iwaszuk, & Westman, 2019), the discussion on transforming urban physical structures remains, for the most part, unexplored (McCormick, Anderberg, Coenen, & Neij, 2013). This is particularly so for adapting the built form of human settlements through the planning of land uses and the design of urban spaces within the constitution of new forms of climate urbanism. In this essay, I explore the potential of Kevin Lynch’s (1981) Good City Form theory, with its value-based performance dimensions for the built environment, for facilitating the transition towards a more resilient climate urbanism. Therefore, I explore: How can these performance dimensions help us analyse the physical, social, and behavioural changes brought about by climate urbanism?
Dataset for assessing the scope and nature of global stream daylighting practices
Authors:
Luna Khirfan, Niloofar Mohtat, Megan Leigh Peck, Andrew Chan, Lucas Ma
Journal:
Data in Brief, Volume 33, 2020, 106366
Keywords:
Stream daylighting; Deculverting; Nature-based solutions; Systematic literature review; Content analysis; Climate change
Abstract
This paper presents five publicly available datasets (I through V) of which two are interactive and visual tools (a Tableau Dashboard and an Interactive Map). These five datasets were extracted from 115 literature sources on the daylighting of streams that were published between 1992 and 2018. Dataset I consist of 19 variables that combine two types of data extracted from these sources: ten manifest variables (indisputable, obvious, factual) and nine variables extracted from the sources’ latent content (indirect, hence, based on careful reading of the sources’ contents). Manifest variables include, among others, authors’ names and affiliations, authorship location, and publication year. Latent variables include primarily the literature sources’ underlying themes and their sub-themes (sub-categories), the daylighting case studies/projects discussed, and the geographic coverage or scope addressed in the literature sources. Dataset II identifies 16 literature sources that delve into the climate change adaptation and/or mitigation theme and reveal how it was tackled vis-à-vis the other themes/sub-themes. Dataset III identifies and provides detailed information on the 145 different daylighting stream daylighting case studies/projects mentioned in the literature’s sources, such as each project’s location, daylighted length, completion date, cost, and type of treatment. Dataset IV is a Tableau Dashboard that offers interactive analytical querying in the form of relational analyses and data visualization while Dataset V is an Interactive Map created in Google My Map that maps the 145 stream daylighting case studies/projects mentioned in the literature sources over and provides a synopsis on each based on the literature’s contents. The combination of these five datasets and their diversity in type and presentation yields a comprehensive, global, and unique repository of information on the daylighting of urban streams for all types of audiences (academic, professional, and laypeople).
A systematic literature review and content analysis combination to “shed some light” on stream daylighting (Deculverting)
Authors:
Luna Khirfan, Niloofar Mohtat, Megan Leigh Peck
Journal:
Water Security, Volume 10, August 2020, 100067
Keywords:
Stream daylighting; Deculverting; Systematic review; Content analysis
Abstract
Since the start of stream daylighting (deculverting streams buried to make way for urban development) in the 1970s, several case study/project-based reviews emerged. Yet, there is a need for literature-based reviews that identify the literature’s themes, interconnections, pressing issues, and knowledge gaps. Therefore, we combine the systematic review and content analysis methods to investigate 115 peer-reviewed and grey literature publications on stream daylighting. Our findings reveal temporal shifts in the multi-/inter-disciplinary clustering patterns of the identified nine themes and 53 sub-themes. Furthermore, there is a dearth in this literature on ‘built form and urban design’, ‘inclusive planning’, and on case studies from the Global South. Last, the connections are absent between stream daylighting and nature-based solutions and climate change adaptation (e.g., vis-à-vis stormwater management, urban heat island, and rainwater harvesting) and climate mitigation (decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, such as through enhancing the opportunities for walkability, cycling, and connections to transit).
Digging for the truth: A combined method to analyze the literature on stream daylighting
Authors:
Luna Khirfan, Megan Leigh Peck, Niloofar Mohtat
Journal:
Sustainable Cities and Society, 59, 2020, 102225
Keywords:
Stream daylighting; De-culverting; Urban water; Waterways; Systematic literature review
Abstract
To date, review articles examining stream daylighting (de-culverting buried streams) are limited in scope, report on only a fraction of available publications, and focus on publications’ explicit (manifest) content rather than their underlying constructs (latent content). This review combines the methods of systematic literature reviews and inductive content analysis to better understand the scope and nature of the literature on stream daylighting. The study investigates four themes: the disciplines, terminologies, definitions, and case studies and their interconnections and covers all relevant English-language sources since 1992 through 2018. The results reveal three findings with implications for future research: 1) there is a dearth in studies that tackle crucial contemporary challenges like climate change and studies that delve into the complex connections among the sociocultural, physical planning, environmental, and economic dimensions of stream daylighting, such as socio-environmental justice, architecture, and urban design; 2) the terminology is inconsistent and a clear definition is absent; 3) Some important stream daylighting cases are overlooked, such as Zürich’s (Switzerland) city-wide initiative and Riyadh’s (Saudi Arabia) first arid climate initiative. The inclusion of such case studies in the literature impacts the perception of stream daylighting and expands the scope and dimensions of this practice.
Systematic content analysis: A combined method to analyze the literature on the daylighting (de-culverting) of urban streams
Authors:
Luna Khirfan, Megan Leigh Peck, Niloofar Mohtat
Journal:
MethodsX, 7, 2020, 100984
Abstract
In this era of climate change, novel nature-based solutions, like the daylighting (de-culverting) of streams, that enhance the socio-ecological resilience are gaining prominence. Yet, the growing body of literature on stream daylighting spreads over an array of seemingly disconnected disciplines and lacks consistency in the terminology and the definitions of the practice. Moreover, nearly all the literature review studies on stream daylighting (mostly produced since 20 0 0) underscore, as their point of departure, the daylighting projects rather than a review of the literature’s content per se. Therefore, this study reassesses the literature on stream daylighting with a particular focus on its role, as a nature-based solution, for climate change mitigation and adaptation and for socio-environmental justice. We combine the systematic literature review (an all-encompassing review of the available literature on stream daylighting) with the inductive content analysis (an in-depth analysis of this literature’s nature). Accordingly, we investigate all the relevant English-language publications since the first peer reviewed article on stream daylighting was published in 1992 until the end of 2018 to analyze four themes: the disciplines and sub-disciplines of the literature; the terminologies and synonyms of stream daylighting; the definitions of stream daylighting; and the case studies tackled in the literature.
- We develop a method that combines a systematic review of the stream daylighting literature and inductive content analysis.
- The method provides insights on the stream daylighting’s literature’s disciplines, terminologies, synonyms and case studies.
- The method is adaptable particularly, to nascent areas of study where sources’ numbers range between 100-200.
