Adaptive planning for coastal sanitation services

Urban sanitation systems in low- and middle-income countries are challenged to deliver citywide inclusive sanitation services. In addition to this, coastal climate hazards are increasingly being driven by sea-level rise, most notably in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. In this paper, a process was followed to assess risks for city sanitation systems associated with sea-level rise, and to plan how these risks can be managed through infrastructure planning and awareness programmes. The academic literature on climate risk assessments does not adequately consider systems-wide adaptive planning responses to climate change-induced impacts or socio-technical issues. Drawing on systems thinking, a broader understanding of the climate-induced risks and their associated cascading impacts on social and environmental health is introduced. These risks can be addressed through an adaptive planning approach that maintains some flexibility to respond to changes in the assumptions about the future. Two case examples from Indonesia are used to demonstrate the methodological approach and to provide insights into the challenges and the required enabling environment for action from a local perspective. The process outlined can be replicated for other coastal infrastructure planning more generally and in other country contexts.