The perspectives of the urban poor in climate vulnerability assessments – The case of Kota, India

Abstract Kota with a high proportion of slum dwellers and extremely high temperatures is under great demand to assess the vulnerability and adaptive capacity of different groups of its inhabitants to the impacts of climatic variability and change. Participatory workshops with key stakeholders in urban administration undertook a short vulnerability assessment to gauge current climate adaptation awareness and measures and discuss and decide on a numbered of proposed actions. The city has many policies and disaster management plans in place although implementation and enforcement was often found lacking. The actions were mainly about infrastructure and ecosystems with few related to boosting and transforming agent capabilities and institutions. The action plans outlining the frequency and responsible institutions for tree planting and cleaning streams also lacked detail or identification of lead institutions, departments, or people. Although stakeholders highlighted that local knowledge was not sufficiently used to inform good planning and policies, the action plans did not include community representatives in decision-making rather only in the implementation of the proposed actions. Although when the group identified slum populations as especially vulnerable the focus of the assessment shifted but in action plans representatives of this group were not included in any decision making or planning processes.