Investigating the Impact of Climate Changes on Future Urban Planning and Development: : A case study of Tehran City

A B S T R A C T
This study investigates the challenges of building climate resilience in metropolitan Tehran through the lens of urban policymaking and governance. The core challenge lies in the insufficient coherence among technical, structural, and social interventions, which exacerbates the risk of long-term vulnerability or “damage lock-in.” Employing a qualitative case study design, the research conducted 30 semi-structured interviews with municipal managers and urban experts, triangulated with documentary analysis and field observations. Data were coded in three stages, open, axial, and selective, using MAXQDA, while descriptive information was managed in Excel. Inter-coder reliability was confirmed with a Cohen’s κ value of 0.67. A mixed quantitative–qualitative analysis condensed 72 initial codes into 18 core categories and six overarching themes. Approximately one-third of the codes appeared in more than 60% of interviews, with issues such as the “absence of a climate outlook” and the “unequal distribution of green space” emerging in about 63% of responses. The findings suggest that policy effectiveness hinges on institutional and legal convergence, the density and quality of natural–physical infrastructure at the neighborhood scale, the availability of data-driven mechanisms, and the robustness of local financing. This framework of “institutional–spatial cohesion for urban resilience” aligns with the principles of adaptive governance and multidimensional resilience, while underscoring their practical interconnections. Policy recommendations encompass introducing a mandatory climate appendix to urban plans, implementing neighborhood-scale green-justice initiatives, promoting performance-based energy retrofits, expediting the transition to clean mobility, and establishing an integrated monitoring system, combining sensor networks with GIS, to track indicators such as green area per capita (m²/person) and neighborhood surface temperature variations (Δ°C). The results inform neighborhood-scale experimental and quasi-experimental projects designed to quantify the synergies among nature-based solutions, water recycling, and energy retrofitting.
Extended Abstract
Introduction
Cities occupy a paradoxical position within the climate crisis: they serve simultaneously as major generators of greenhouse gas emissions and as zones of acute vulnerability due to their high population densities and concentrated infrastructure. Tehran epitomizes these dynamics, confronting intersecting threats such as intensified heatwaves, altered hydrological regimes, manifested in both flash floods and prolonged droughts, severe air pollution, and the uneven spatial distribution of environmental amenities. Current planning frameworks in Tehran, similar to those in many rapidly urbanizing contexts, tend to compartmentalize mitigation, adaptation, and social equity, resulting in fragmented, project-based interventions that perpetuate exposure to lock-in effects and irreversible vulnerabilities. This study interrogates the structural, spatial, and governance dimensions shaping the effectiveness of urban climate policy in Tehran and advances a unifying analytical framework, termed institutional–spatial coherence for urban resilience, as both a conceptual lens and a policy heuristic for integrating technical, institutional, and community-based interventions.
 
Methodology
This research adopted a qualitative case study design centered on Tehran. Primary data were gathered through thirty semi-structured interviews with senior and mid-level urban managers, sectoral directors in water, environment, and transport, as well as academic experts and practitioners, selected using purposive and snowball sampling techniques. Interviews, ranging from forty-five to ninety minutes, were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim within forty-eight to seventy-two hours, anonymized, and complemented by triangulated documentary analysis of strategic plans and regulatory texts, alongside systematic field observations.
A rigorous three-stage thematic coding process, comprising open, axial, and selective phases, was carried out in MAXQDA to identify emergent patterns and conceptual linkages. In total, seventy-two initial codes were consolidated into eighteen axial categories and, subsequently, into six higher-order themes. To enhance analytic reliability, a minimum of twenty percent of transcripts were independently double-coded, yielding a Cohen’s kappa coefficient of 0.67. Descriptive metadata were organized and managed in Microsoft Excel. Methodological rigor was ensured through multiple safeguards, including member checking, peer debriefing, the maintenance of a comprehensive audit trail, comprising codebooks and analytical memos, and reflexive documentation of researcher assumptions and positionality.
 
Results and Discussion
The analysis identified six interrelated themes that collectively shape Tehran’s capacity to respond to climatic shocks: (1) sustainable urban development and climate governance; (2) nature-based and green-space mechanisms; (3) sustainable water-resource management; (4) physical and functional dimensions of urban resilience; (5) energy efficiency and resilient building design; and (6) sustainable mobility and traffic management. Quantitatively, approximately one-third of the seventy-two codes were referenced by more than sixty percent of participants, indicating substantial consensus on the city’s key constraints and policy priorities.
Recurrent governance shortcomings include the absence of an explicit climate vision within higher-order planning documents; weak or non-binding climate annexes in development projects; limited inter-institutional coordination, particularly among municipal departments, the Ministry of Energy, and environmental agencies, and fragmented budgetary and data flows. Spatial inequalities featured prominently in the findings: deficits in both green-area availability per capita and maintenance quality were reported by approximately sixty-three percent of respondents, underscoring the relationship between ecological infrastructure and localized heat exposure.
Water governance challenges were identified as both technical, such as inadequate wastewater recycling and aging treatment infrastructure and institutional, including limited local financing mechanisms and the absence of incentives for efficient irrigation and household-level conservation. The built environment was consistently identified as a major source of emissions and a contributor to urban heat amplification. Extensive stocks of thermally inefficient housing require targeted retrofitting; however, regulatory weaknesses and the absence of financial incentives continue to impede large-scale implementation. Findings related to mobility suggest that investment in mass transit systems, particularly the metro, can influence modal share. Yet, without complementary demand-management measures, such as parking regulation, congestion pricing, and incentives for electric fleets, modal shifts remain modest.
The synthesis of qualitative insights and frequency data indicates that technical interventions, such as nature-based solutions, drainage upgrades, and energy retrofits, are insufficient in isolation unless embedded within binding coordination mechanisms, localized financing instruments, and robust monitoring frameworks. The evidence supports a multiplicative model of policy effectiveness in which three interdependent capacities must co-occur: (1) legal and institutional convergence across governance scales; (2) dense, high-quality ecological and infrastructural assets at the neighborhood level; and (3) data-driven feedback loops combined with place-based financing to sustain implementation and adaptive learning. This model elucidates why many well-intentioned interventions in Tehran fail to achieve equitable and sustainable scalability.
 
Conclusion
This study introduces and empirically substantiates the institutional–spatial coherence for urban resilience framework, positing that measurable policy effectiveness depends on the concurrent strengthening of governance coherence, neighborhood-scale ecological and infrastructural capacities, and data and financing mechanisms that enable adaptive implementation.
From a policy perspective, five key recommendations emerge: (1) enact mandatory climate annexes and interagency coordination protocols; (2) implement a targeted green justice program to address neighborhood-level disparities in green space through nature-based solutions; (3) establish a citywide energy-retrofitting initiative supported by performance-based financial incentives; (4) accelerate the expansion of mass-transit systems in tandem with demand-management instruments; and (5) develop an integrated GIS- and sensor-based monitoring dashboard to track indicators such as green area per capita (m²/person), neighborhood surface-temperature variation (Δ°C), water and energy savings (%), modal share of sustainable trips, and the proportion of retrofitted buildings.
The research also identifies three empirical gaps warranting future investigation: (1) the scarcity of quasi-experimental evidence on the combined effects of nature-based solutions, wastewater recycling, and building retrofits at the neighborhood scale; (2) limited empirical inquiry into how local co-financing models influence measurable performance outcomes; and (3) insufficient analysis of the political-economy barriers that constrain effective policy implementation. Addressing these gaps through pilot interventions and longitudinal mixed-methods evaluations will be essential to operationalize the coherence framework and to transform Tehran’s urban climate strategy from a set of fragmented actions into a measurable, equitable, and durable pathway toward resilience.
 
Funding
There is no funding support.
 
Authors’ Contribution
Authors contributed equally to the conceptualization and writing of the article. All of the authors approved thecontent of the manuscript and agreed on all aspects of the work declaration of competing interest none.
 
Conflict of Interest
Authors declared no conflict of interest.
 
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to all the scientific consultants of this paper.