Unravelling the Policy-to-Implementation Gap: Climate Adaptation Governance Arrangements in Medium-Sized Cities

Urban areas are increasingly facing climate-related risks that outpace the implementation of adaptation measures, often attributed to a persistent policy-to-implementation gap. Bridging this gap requires a deeper understanding of the underlying governance dynamics. This paper adopts a governance arrangement perspective, drawing on recent insights from urban climate adaptation literature to introduce a Climate Adaptation Governance Arrangement (CAGA) framework. This framework examines institutional conditions that either enable or constrain climate adaptation planning, helping to unravel barriers to effective implementation. It was applied to analyse climate adaptation efforts in the medium-sized city of Groningen (the Netherlands). Medium-sized cities are less prevalent in adaptation research, even though growing evidence suggests that their limited resources and strong interpersonal relationships can foster innovative adaptation strategies. Through a policy analysis and interviews with stakeholders from local and regional governments and society, we found that Groningen has been innovative in linking climate adaptation to spatial quality, which makes climate adaptation a central goal in urban planning. However, the development of a holistic and integrated approach remains hindered by existing path dependencies, leading to an overemphasis and usage of water-related measures and budgets.