Urban health: Challenges of climate change

Abstract der Sitzung

Global climate change can be regarded as the major threat for urban health in the 21st century. Climate change causes strong health impacts from life-threatening extreme weather events (e.g. heat waves, floods, etc.), aggravates food and water insecurity, and increases the risk of infectious disease outbreaks. Health impacts are strongly modified by social vulnerability, the capacity of health care systems, and the (non‑)implementation of mitigation and adaptation strategies. Demographic (age, gender, etc.), socio-economic (income, lifestyle, etc.), and spatial factors (residential area, workplace, etc.) affect the relationships between the exposure to climate-induced risk factors and human health outcomes. Thus, successful mitigation and adaptation strategies in urban areas must consider geo-physical and geo-chemical factors as well as power relations and socio-economic inequalities on multiple spatial scales.

This session is one of two related to urban health. While one focusses on “human health in urban environments” (Dennis Schmiege/Carsten Butsch), in this session we put special emphasis on the challenges related to climate change. We invite contributions from all fields of geography dealing with novel, interdisciplinary approaches to address the risks of global environmental change for human and more-than-human health in cities. Studies following integrated approaches for mitigation and adaptation are particularly welcome.