Editing IPCC:AR6/WGII/Chapter-6 (section)

==== 6.3.5.3 Information and Communication Technology ====

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Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are deeply intertwined with the functioning of urban and infrastructure systems, and are at the core of the ‘smart city’ concept ( [[#Angelidou--2015|Angelidou, 2015]] ). ICT is more flexible than other physical infrastructure, although as other sectors are increasingly reliant on ICT, it is creating new climate-related failure mechanisms ( [[#Norman--2018|Norman, 2018]] ; Maki et al., 2019). ICT assets and networks in urban, national and international communications systems will need to be strengthened to enable ICT infrastructure to better cope with climate change, and to enable ICT infrastructure to support the resilience of cities, settlements and other infrastructure. The increased pervasiveness of ICT in smart cities, smart infrastructure and day-to-day living, will evidently have long-term implications for exposure to climate change risks and how cities manage those risks ( [[#Norman--2018|Norman, 2018]] ; Maki et al., 2019). For example, even if the ICT network is resilient to heatwaves, it is dependent on the electricity network to power it. Conversely, other networks are dependent upon ICT for control systems, for example smart grids for energy. There is limited information on how these interdependencies, and associated risks, will evolve.

Although networked like many other infrastructure systems, ICT components have some distinctive properties. They are relatively cheap, and the advent of wireless communications has enabled ICT to have the widest reach of all infrastructures. Components can be rapidly deployed or repaired, and generally ICT networks are therefore built with inherent redundancy and flexibility (Sakano et al., 2016). Components have a wide range of expected lifetimes which leads to faster cycles of innovation. There is therefore greater potential to accelerate uptake of climate resilience in this infrastructure sector, but conversely, this can increase waste and (energy intensive) resource consumption. For example, mobile phones and computers may last as little as a year, cables and switching units may be moved and upgraded to improve bandwidth every few years, poles and masts are typically designed to last several decades, whilst exchanges and other critical nodes can be in use for over half a century.

ICTs are playing an increasing role in resilience building and enabling climate change adaptation. They are enabling access to information needed for decision making, facilitating learning and coordination among stakeholders, and building social capital, as well as helping to monitor, visualise and disseminate current and future climate impacts (Eakin et al., 2015; [[#Heeks--2019|Heeks and Ospina, 2019]] ; Haworth et al., 2018; Imam, Hossain and Saha, 2017). Advocacy and awareness raising through ICTs, such social media applications, can influence behaviours and attitudes in support of adaptive pathways ( [[#Laspidou--2014|Laspidou, 2014]] ).

ICTs play a role in adaptive responses to both short-term shocks and long-term trends associated with climate change. Timely access to information (e.g., early warning, temperature and rainfall, agricultural advice) through ICTs (e.g., mobile devices, SMS, radio, social media) can be crucial to respond and mitigate the impact of emergencies such as floods and drought, for identifying pest and disease prevalence, and for informing livelihood options, key in adaptation pathways of vulnerable communities ( [[#Devkota--2018|Devkota and Phuyal, 2018]] ; Panda et al., 2019).

In addition to contributing to the robustness and stability of the critical infrastructure in the event of disasters, ICTs can strengthen other attributes of resilient urban systems by enabling learning and community self-organisation, cross-scale networks and flexibility, helping vulnerable stakeholders, in particular, to adjust to change and uncertainty ( [[#Heeks--2015|Heeks and Ospina, 2015]] ; [[#Heeks--2019|Heeks and Ospina, 2019]] ). Big data is being used to inform responses to humanitarian emergencies (Pham et al., 2014; Ali et al., 2016), as well as to generate new forms of citizen engagement and reporting (e.g., community-based maps of flood-prone areas) that can help to inform coping and adaptive responses (Ogie et al., 2019).

The selection and use of ICTs for adaptation needs to be fairly grounded in the broader socio-cultural, economic, political and institutional context, to ensure that these tools effectively help address existing, emerging and future adaptive needs. Typically, ICT is inadequate on its own to make a significant difference ( [[#Toya--2015|Toya and Skidmore, 2015]] ). The role of ICTs in adaptive pathways is influenced by the availability of locally relevant information (e.g., weather-based advisory messages, local market prices), the accessibility of information by all members of the community (e.g., using various text, audio and visual content, local languages, addressing gender-related exclusion, cost and digital competencies) and the applicability of information at the appropriate scale (local, regional or national), including data quality and verification ( [[#Namukombo--2016|Namukombo, 2016]] ; Haworth et al., 2018).

Information privacy and security, as well as the unintended impacts of ICTs on inequality, spread of misinformation and on widening existing gaps (e.g., due to poverty, gender and power differentials), can also constrain the contribution of ICTs to urban adaptation (Haworth et al., 2018; [[#Coletta--2017|Coletta and Kitchin, 2017]] ; [[#Leszczynski--2016|Leszczynski, 2016]] ) and are among the key challenges that need to be addressed in order to fully realise their potential.

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