摘要
目前全球已有一半的人口居住在城市,且这种面向城市的人口净流入仍将继续下去。在城市面临的所有挑战中,最紧迫的当属供水和卫生问题。2017~2018年,因连年干旱、严重缺水而导致的水资源危机使南非开普敦市频繁出现在世界各地的媒体头条中。幸运的是,象征着城市水资源耗尽的"零水日"并未到来。尽管如此,这场危机仍暴露出该市供水系统在面对持续气候变化时总体缺乏韧性,在气候适应性治理方面亦存在缺口。众多城市,尤其是南半球城市,可以从开普敦的遭遇中吸取鲜活的经验和教训,了解如何通过强化治理来提高气候适应性。受访人马克·纽和吉娜·希尔翁戈长期关注开普敦的干旱问题,并致力于制定"开普敦干旱响应学习计划"。在本文中,受访人剖析了气候变化对开普敦干旱问题及城市供水系统的影响,并就干旱及水资源短缺的应对及预防措施提出了建议。本文亦简要介绍了由希尔翁戈提出的"适应性水敏城市框架"以及由二位受访人共同推行的"开普敦干旱响应学习计划"对提高开普敦城市韧性的促进作用。
Half of humanity now lives in cities and the net inflow of population into cities will continue. Among all challenges faced by cities, the provisioning for water and sanitation is probably the most pressing one. From 2017 to 2018, the city of Cape Town in South Africa frequently made itself media headlines around the world, in many languages, for its severe water shortage due to consecutive years of drought that later resulted in a water crisis. Fortunately, the potential "Day Zero" when the city would run out of water, did not arrive. However, the crisis exposed a lack of resilience in the city's water supply system in the face of ongoing climate change and a governance gap for climate adaptation. Many cities, especially those in the Global South, can learn from Cape Town's experience and lessons on how to enhance governance to become more climate-resilient. Mark New and Gina Ziervogel, the interviewees, have been devoting themselves to studying about the Cape Town drought, and working on establishing the Cape Town Drought Response Learning Initiative. In this article, they analyzed the influence of climate change on Cape Town drought and the water supply system,and suggested effective methods to address and prevent the drought and water shortage. Ziervogel briefly described her adaptive and water-sensitive city framework while both of them revealed the role of Cape Town Drought Response Learning Initiative in making Cape Town more resilient.
引文
[1] Ziervogel, G.(2019). Unpacking the Cape Town Drought:Lessons Learned. Retrieved from https://www.africancentreforcities.net/unpacking-cape-town-drought-lessons-learned/