Introducing the Green Book: A practical planning tool for adapting South African settlements to climate change

Abstract

The Green Book is not a book, but a novel, practical online planning tool to support the adaptation of South African settlements to the impacts of climatic changes and severe events. It provides evidence of current and future (2050) climate risks and vulnerability for every local municipality in South Africa (including settlements) in the form of climate-change projections, multidimensional vulnerability indicators, population-growth projections, and climate hazard and impact modelling. Based on this evidence, the Green Book developed a menu of planning-related adaptation actions and offers support in the selection of appropriate actions from this menu to be integrated into local development strategies and plans. The second half of this article describes the steps involved in the process of developing and structuring this menu of actions and explains how the information contained in the Green Book can be used to promote the planning of climate-resilient settlements in South Africa.