Climate resilience for cities is often discussed in terms of infrastructure, engineering, weather models or flood protection. Yet behind every climate adaptation measure lies a social question: who benefits, who is vulnerable, who takes responsibility, and how do people experience a changing city?
These questions sit at the heart of the Climate Resilient Cities programme at AMS Institute. The programme examines how cities can prepare for heavier rainfall, rising temperatures, drought and other consequences of climate change. The programme approaches the city as an interconnected system of air, water, soil, greenery and people. The people dimension runs through many of the programme's research projects and was also reflected during the AMS Scientific Conference, where researchers from different disciplines presented work that, in different ways, explored the relationship between climate change and the people who live with it.
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Who Is Responsible When Disaster Strikes?
During an interactive session at the Scientific Conference, participants were confronted with a hypothetical flood scenario affecting Dordrecht and Amsterdam's Watergraafsmeer. The scenario involved large-scale flooding, severe infrastructural disruption and prolonged inundation. Participants mapped responsibilities across different phases of disaster management, from preparedness and emergency response to short-term and long-term recovery.
Rather than producing a clear division of tasks, the exercise exposed how fragmented responsibilities can become during a climate-related crisis. Maged Elsamny, who led the session, explains: ‘At this moment, nobody, or rather, no organization says: we are responsible for this specific thing during the event of a climate disaster.’ Even in essential domains such as food and water distribution, participants were uncertain about ownership and accountability.
Photo: Maarten Nauw
One finding stood out throughout the discussions: disaster planning in the Netherlands remains largely organization-centered. Residents often appear as recipients of support rather than active contributors to preparedness and recovery. Yet communities possess valuable knowledge, particularly people who have already experienced flooding. Connecting those experiences more directly to institutional planning could strengthen resilience long before a disaster occurs.
The City as a Living Archive
Questions of lived experience also appear in research that might initially seem more technical. Bianca Eline Sandvik investigates how Amsterdam's building history influences vulnerability to heat. Current urban climate models often categorize buildings in broad groups, despite differences in construction methods across centuries.
Photo: Maarten Nauw
“Certain building periods in the past perform better than, for example, post-war buildings. It is not simply a matter of older buildings being less insulated. Models give insight into this, which can then inform policy recommendations.”
Bianca Eline Sandvik
Using cadastral data and historical building records, Sandvik developed a method to incorporate different construction periods into urban climate models. The work helps identify which neighborhoods may be most vulnerable during heatwaves and where adaptation measures are most urgently needed.
Protecting People From Heat
Abantika Sengupta is also researching heat in buildings, specifically thermal resilience in Positive Energy Neighbourhoods, which are designed to collectively produce more energy than they consume.
Sengupta: ‘Energy performance alone does not guarantee climate resilience. A neighbourhood can be energy positive and still leave residents vulnerable during extreme heat.’ Her research examines how buildings respond to heatwaves and whether they can maintain safe indoor conditions during periods of prolonged heat. By developing indicators for thermal resilience, the work allows planners to evaluate different adaptation strategies and assess how building characteristics influence occupant wellbeing.
The research reflects a broader shift in climate adaptation thinking, with growing recognition that buildings should deliver strong environmental performance while also protecting people from climate-related health risks.
Photo: Maarten Nauw
Beyond What Can Be Measured
The relationship between environmental conditions and lived experience is also central to the work of Gustaf Wuite, who studies traffic noise annoyance. Wuite's review of scientific literature examined how urban form and vegetation influence people's experience of noise. The findings suggest that environmental quality cannot always be understood through measurements alone.
Wuite: ‘Access to greenery, views from windows and the design of public spaces can significantly affect how residents experience their surroundings. Noise annoyance is contextual. For example, trees only reduce noise by about one decibel, but the perceived noise reduction is much higher.’ The findings point to a broader lesson for climate resilience research: objective measurements and lived experiences do not always align.
And even interventions that seem universally beneficial can produce unequal outcomes. Access to canals and waterways, which strengthen climate resilience by helping cities manage heat and water-related challenges, can also provide social benefits by reducing stress, offering relief from urban pressures, and encouraging social interaction. However, not everyone benefits equally from these spaces.
Research by Ella O'Neill found that access to these benefits is unevenly distributed. As O'Neill explains, ‘people's willingness to swim, spend time near the water, or trust information about water quality varied according to their social and economic backgrounds.’
Climate resilience thus also concerns who has access to healthy environments and whose experiences are reflected in planning decisions.
Connecting Science and Society
A common theme emerges across all the diverse topics that have to do with climate change: climate change affects neighborhoods, and even people within neighborhoods, differently. Access to healthy environments, recovery after disasters, and adaptation measures look different for everyone.
Researchers must continue to model rainfall, temperature and water systems, develop future scenarios and evaluate adaptation strategies. But equally important are questions of responsibility, equity and lived experience. Understanding these social dimensions is essential for building resilient cities.
