|
Professor African Climate and Development Initiative Director Geology Building, 6th floor Tel: 021-6504796 BSc (UCT), Hons (Rhodes University), DPhil (Oxon) NRF B2-rated researcher (2021) |
Academic Profile
Gina Ziervogel is a Professor in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science and Director of the African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI) at the University of Cape Town. Gina is a geographer by training, with 25 years of experience in the field of adaptation and vulnerability to global environmental change, where she has worked closely with a range of actors across scales from the neighbourhood and NGO level to cities, provinces and national level to better understand opportunities to adapt to climate risk given governance, development and inequality challenges.
Methodologically she is interested in engaged scholarship and transdisciplinary projects that bring together civil society, government and academics to address climate-related problems collaboratively.
Gina is currently Co-PI with Petra Holden on the CLARE project Tuwe Pamoja Let’s be together for equitable urban nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation. The project, working in Accra, Cape Town, Lusaka and Nairobi aims to better understand the lived experiences of people in informal settlements, and to better plan nature-based solutions that holistically account for diverse needs and climate risks at neighbourhood levels and feed into climate resilient development pathways.
During 2019- 2020 Gina worked with a team at CSAG (Climate Systems Analysis Group) to develop a National Climate Risk & Vulnerability (CRV) Assessment Framework. Through a consultative process, the team developed a framework to guide users (from NGOs and small organisations, to business to government, including metro, local and provincial) through a process of scoping, planning and assessing risk and vulnerability assessments. When assessing vulnerability it gives options of initial screening, a mid-range or in-depth approach depending on resources, purpose and data. (See full version of the framework or 4 page brief)
Recently Gina’s worked on urban water governance for resilience in Cape Town, supported by a research grant from AXA research fund. She has looked at the governance of the drought and the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of the municipal government’s response. She has also been working with local actors using innovative methods to collaboratively collect and analyse community-generated data around water services in low-income areas. (see further info on CoReCT project here)
Gina served on the City of Cape Town’s Water Resilience Advisory Section 80 Committee. Drawing on her research, she co-wrote a book about the drought with Leonie Joubert, a science journalist (www.dayzero.org.za). Please see further drought-related material here.
She was a lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6th Assessment report and has authored numerous papers, book chapters and popular articles. In 2020 Gina was awarded the UCT Social responsiveness award. She was a 2020/2021 Fulbright scholar on sabbatical at University California Santa Cruz. She was part of the Homeward Bound programme, an international leadership programme for women in STEMM (UCT news article), and joined 100 other women on a ship to Antarctica.
Research Interests
- Adaptation to climate change
- Climate Resilient Development Pathways
- Building adaptive and transformative capacity across scales
- Social justice and transformative adaptation
- Southern African development under climate change
- Urban environmental governance
- Applied research and engaged scholarship
- Transdisciplinary research and action
·
Selected Publications
Ziervogel, G., Hamann, R. (2024). The potential of social innovation to shift the limits to climate adaptation. Curr. Opin. Environ. Sustain. 71, 101491. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2024.101491
Rodina, L., Harris, L., Ziervogel, G., Wilson, J. (2024). Resilience counter-currents: Water infrastructures, informality, and inequities in Cape Town, South Africa. World Development, 180, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106619
Eakin, H., Methner, N., Ziervogel, G. (2024) Private provisioning of public adaptation: Integration of cognitive-behavioral, adaptive capacity, and institutional approaches. Global Environmental Change, 84, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102771
Eakin, H., Hamann, R., Ziervogel, G., Shearing, C. (2023) Emergent governance responses to shocks to critical provisioning systems. npj Urban Sustainability, 3 (1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-023-00123-y
McClure, A., Patel, Z., Ziervogel, G., Hardman, J. (2023) Exploring the role of transdisciplinary learning for navigating climate risks in African cities: The case of Lusaka, Zambia. Environmental Science and Policy, 149, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2023.103571
Taylor, A., Methner, N., Barkai, K.R., McClure, A., Jack, C., New, M., Ziervogel, G. (2023) Operationalising climate-resilient development pathways in the Global South. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 64, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2023.101328
Tschakert, P., Parsons, M., Atkins, E., Garcia, A., Godden, N., Gonda, N., Paiva Henrique, K., Sallu, S., Steen, K., Ziervogel, G. (2023) Methodological lessons for negotiating power, political capabilities, and resilience in research on climate change responses. World Development, 167, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2023.106247
Ziervogel, G., Taylor, A. (2023) A co-produced national climate change risk and vulnerability assessment framework for South Africa. Frontiers in Climate, 5, https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2023.1197167
Omari Motsumi, K., Ziervogel, G., New, M. (2023) Drought governance: A cross-level governance analysis in Botswana. Climate Risk Management, 42, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2023.100557
Fox, A., Ziervogel, G., Scheba, S. (2023) Strengthening community-based adaptation for urban transformation: managing flood risk in informal settlements in Cape Town. Local Environment, 28 (7), pp. 837-851. https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2021.1923000
Potter, E., Miller, F., Lövbrand, E., Houston, D., McLean, J., O'Gorman, E., Evers, C., Ziervogel, G. (2022) A manifesto for shadow places: Re-imagining and co-producing connections for justice in an era of climate change Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 5 (1), pp. 272-292. https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848620977022
Ziervogel, G. Lennard, C., Midgley, G., New, M., Simpson, N., Trisos, C. and Zvobgo, L. (2022). ‘Climate change in South Africa: Risks and opportunities for climate-resilient development in the IPCC Sixth Assessment WGII Report’, South African Journal of Science. Academy of Science of South Africa, 118(9–10), pp. 1–5. https://doi.org/10.17159/sajs.2022/14492
Ziervogel, G. et al. (2022) ‘Supporting transformative climate adaptation: community-level capacity building and knowledge co-creation in South Africa’, Climate Policy. Taylor & Francis, 22(5), pp. 607–622. doi: 10.1080/14693062.2020.1863180 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14693062.2020.1863180
Cole, H. D., M. J. Cole, K. J. Simpson, N. P. Simpson, G. Ziervogel, and M. G. New. (2021). Managing city-scale slow-onset disasters: Learning from Cape Town’s 2015–2018 drought disaster planning. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 63:102459. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102459
Pelling, M., W. T. L. Chow, E. Chu, R. Dawson, D. Dodman, A. Fraser, B. Hayward, L. Khirfan, T. McPhearson, A. Prakash, and G. Ziervogel. (2021). A climate resilience research renewal agenda: learning lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic for urban climate resilience. Climate and Development:1–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2021.1956411
Peirson, A. E., and G. Ziervogel. (2021). Sanitation Upgrading as Climate Action: Lessons for Local Government from a Community Informal Settlement Project in Cape Town. Sustainability 13(8598). https://doi.org/10.3390/su13158598
Ziervogel, G., J. Enqvist, L. Metelerkamp, and J. van Breda. (2021). Supporting transformative climate adaptation: Community-level capacity building and knowledge co-creation in South Africa. Climate Policy 0(0):1–16. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14693062.2020.1863180 (open access) [Briefing note: Policy support for climate adaptation and transformation: capacity building and community resilience in Cape Town]
·
For earlier publications see Google scholar