Read the case study in Chinese here.
In order to understand the impact of climate change on the city of Wuhan and to support the climate-resilient city construction pilot project, the Wuhan Development and Reform Commission and the China Quality Certification Center cooperated together with the Wuhan Meteorological Bureau, the Wuhan Civil Affairs Bureau, the Wuhan Water Affairs Bureau, the Wuhan Urban Management Commission and other departments to carry out an assessment of climate change vulnerabilities in the city.
What is the innovation? How does it work?
A new standard
Combined with the international climate vulnerability assessment method, an urban climate change vulnerability assessment standard has been proposed for the first time in China. It helps understand the overall level and trend of urban vulnerabilities, identify major climate hazards and vulnerable regions and sectors, and it serves as a technical support for assessing climate change vulnerabilities in Chinese cities.
Development of climate scenarios
For the very first time, climate change scenarios have been developed for the city of Wuhan. The estimate of future climate change is mainly based on the atmospheric circulation model bcc-csm1.1-m developed by the Beijing Climate Center, supplemented by five other global climate models (GCM) suitable for Wuhan as touchstones for consistency test, showing trends for ‘Representative Concentration Pathway’ (RCP) 2.6 to RCP8.5*.
* RCPs were used in the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC in 2014 as a basis for the report’s findings. The four RCPs range from very high (RCP8.50) through to very low (RCP2.6) future concentrations. The numerical values of the RCPs refer to the concentrations in 2100.
- Benefits
- Economic
- Environmental
- Key Impact
- To provide Wuhan with an assessment of the city's climate change vulnerabilities.