The new open access scientific publication entitled “Quality of urban climate adaptation plans over time” has recently been published in Nature Portfolio’s Urban Sustainability Journal. The paper aims to assess the progress of urban adaptation planning in 327 European cities between 2005 and 2020 using three ‘ADAptation plan Quality Assessment’ indices, called ADAQA-1/ 2/ 3, that combine six plan quality principles.

Half of the cities examined have an adaptation plan and its quality significantly increased over time. However, generally, plan quality is still low in many cities. Participation and monitoring and evaluation are particularly weak aspects in urban adaptation policy, together with plan ‘consistency’. Consistency refers to the connection of impacts and vulnerabilities with adaptation goals, planned measures, actions, monitoring and evaluation, and participation processes, and it is a key factor in the assessment of the overall quality of the plans.

To help evaluate the quality of plans and policies and promote learning, the authors suggest incorporating the ADAptation plan Quality Assessment indices into the portfolio of adaptation progress assessments and tracking methodologies.

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