HOW TO MONITOR LOCAL OBJECTIVES FOR URBAN CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION? INSIGHTS FROM QUANTITATIVE CONTENT ANALYSIS OF SELECTED PARTICIPATORY BUDGETS IN THE UPPER SILESIAN-ZAGŁĘBIE METROPOLIS
HOW TO MONITOR LOCAL OBJECTIVES FOR URBAN CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION? INSIGHTS FROM QUANTITATIVE CONTENT ANALYSIS OF SELECTED PARTICIPATORY BUDGETS IN THE UPPER SILESIAN-ZAGŁĘBIE METROPOLIS

Summary/Abstract: Subsequent analyses of participatory budgeting in Poland emphasise the popularityof environmental issues such as greenery, air quality, and sustainable transport, which should alsosupport objectives in urban climate change adaptation (UCCA). An increasing number of adaptationprojects within local standards or ‘green’ civic budgets are often listed among the indicators in urbanadaptation plans for Polish cities. However, available research studies and urban evaluation reportsshow that monitoring participatory budgets poses a methodological challenge. Therefore, the aimof the article is twofold. First, it proposes a method of identifying overlaps of urban climate changeadaptation objectives with descriptions of projects submitted to local participatory budgets of theUpper Silesian-Zagłębie Metropolis. For this purpose, a dictionary-based text analysis of projectdescriptions was performed and critically examined. The second aim was to identify trends in urbanclimate change adaptation objectives. Thus, the quantitative distribution of coded descriptions wasevaluated to investigate how subsequent types of participatory budgets (editions, green vs. standard,implemented vs. non-implemented) differed. The results demonstrate that the available database ofparticipatory budget projects is a rich source of information on local preferences towards issues rela-ted to UCCA. To strengthen the objectives of urban climate change adaptation, city administrationscan consider additional tools, such as UCCA-related tips/inspiration and targeted calls for projects,as well as supplementing participatory budgets with other deliberative methods. However, collec-ting precise and calculable data on this topic based on participatory budget databases requires bothmethodological adjustments and careful validation.

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