Page - 411 - in Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change

411© The Author(s) 2019 M. R. Marselle et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02318-8_18 Chapter 18 Resilience Management for  Healthy Cities in  a  Changing Climate Thomas  Elmqvist, Franz  Gatzweiler, Elisabet  Lindgren, and  Jieling  Liu Abstract Cities are experiencing multiple impacts from global environmental change, and the degree to which they will need to cope with and adapt to these chal- lenges will continue to increase. We argue that a ‘complex systems and resilience management’ view may significantly help guide future urban development through innovative integration of, for example, grey, blue and green infrastructure embedded in flexible institutions (both formal and informal) for multi-functionality and improved health. For instance, the urban heat island effect will further increase city- centre temperatures during projected more frequent and intense heat waves. The elderly and people with chronic cardiovascular and respiratory diseases are particu- larly vulnerable to heat. Integrating vegetation and especially trees in the urban infrastructure helps reduce temperatures by shading and evapotranspiration. Great complexity and uncertainty of urban social-ecological systems are behind this heatwave- health nexus, and they need to be addressed in a more comprehensive manner. We argue that a systems perspective can lead to innovative designs of new urban infrastructure and the redesign of existing structures. Particularly to promot- ing the integration of grey, green and blue infrastructure in urban planning through institutional innovation and structural reorganization of knowledge-action systems may significantly enhance prospects for improved urban health and greater resil- ience under various scenarios of climate change. Keywords Resilience management · Nature-based solutions · Urban health · Climate change · Urban complexity · Knowledge-action systems T. Elmqvist (*) · E. Lindgren Stockholm Resilience Center, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden e-mail: thomas.elmqvist@su.se; elisabet.lindgren@su.se F. Gatzweiler Institute of Urban Environment (IUE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Xiamen, China e-mail: franz@iue.ac.cn J. Liu Institute of Social Sciences (ICS), University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal e-mail: jielingliu@campus.ul.pt