Research papers and case studies 

Research papers and case studies 

Climate Change, Health Risks, and Megacities: Mumbai Case Study

Climate Change, Public Health, and Megacities: Rio de Janeiro Case Study

Climate Resilience and Investment- sub-Saharan Africa. The World Bank Group.

Lead author: Cesar Marolla.

Development and Management of Resilient Cities in the Face of Global Change

                                             Passcode: 5sF+PuBm

Publications

Marolla, C. (2023). Volume IV Socio-Political Risk Management: The Dynamics of Global Risks: Social and Political Risks into Strategic Management and Policy Decisions. Edited by: Kurt J. Engemann, Cathryn F. Lavery and Jeanne M. Sheehan. De Gruyter Publishing GmbH.

Marolla, C., Strzepek, K. & Castillo, D. (2022). Climate Resilience of Urban Investment Projects in sub-Saharan Africa. International Bank for Reconstruction and Development; The World Bank.

Marolla, C. (2020). Information and Communication Technology for Sustainable Development. AISC, vol. 933. Springer, Singapore.

Marolla, C. & Sommer, A. (2020). Risk Management and Business Continuity Systems to Cope with Public Health Risks-A Challenge to Public Health Systems
https://doi.org/10.1201/9781315367323

Marolla, Cesar. (2019). Health in the Digital World. Information and Communication Technology for Sustainable Development. CRC Press. ISBN 9780367570699.

Marolla, Cesar. (2019). Rio de Janeiro: Megacity Vulnerabilities to Climate Change Case Study.

Climate Health Risks in Megacities. Taylor and Francis Group, ISBN-10: 0367878151; ISBN13: 9780367878153

Marolla, C. (2019). The Urban Poor and the Response of Megacities to Dealing with Climate Change Health Risks. Climate Health Risks in Megacities, ISBN 9780367878153. CRC Press

Marolla, C. (2018). Megacities at risk. The Routledge Companion to Risk, Crisis and Security in Business. Print ISBN: 9781138643109.

Marolla, C. (2018). Mechanism Design, Risk Mechanism Theory and Its Relation to Information and Communication Technologies, Risk Management and Sustainable Development. Information and Communication Technology for Sustainable Development (pp. 159-192). CRC Press.

Marolla, C. (2018). The Information and Communication Technology Revolution.
In Information and Communication Technology for Sustainable Development (pp. 207-212). CRC Press.

Marolla, C. (2018). Information and communication technology for sustainable development. Routledge; Taylor and Francis Group. ISBN 9780367570699.

Marolla, C. (2018). Health in the Digital World. In Information and Communication Technology for Sustainable Development (pp. 83-102). CRC Press.

Marolla, C. (2018). Innovation Strategy. Information and communication technology for sustainable development. CRC Press.

Marolla, C. (2018). Information and Communication Technology and Sustainable Development: An Imperative for Change. In Information and Communication Technology for Sustainable Development (pp. 1-10). CRC Press.

Marolla, C. (2018). Megacities at risk. In The Routledge Companion to Risk, Crisis and Security in Business (pp. 189-192). Routledge.

Marolla, C. (2018). ICT Role and Roadmap for Smart Sustainable Cities. In Information and Communication Technology for Sustainable Development (pp. 115-128). CRC Press.

Marolla, Cesar. (2018). Leading through uncertainty. The Routledge Companion to Risk, Crisis and Security in Business, 1st Edition. Routledge. eBook ISBN9781315629520

Marolla, C. (2018). Using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to Tackle Climate Variability and Change Impacts. Information and Communication Technology for Sustainbale Development. CRC Press. ISBN 9781351045223.

Marolla, Cesar. (2018). Leading through uncertainty. The Routledge Companion to Risk, Crisis and Security in Business.1st Edition. Routledge. eBook ISBN9781315629520

Marolla, C. (2018). Intelligent Transport Systems for Sustainable Development. CRC Press. eBook ISBN9781351045230

Marolla, C. (2018). ICT Role and Roadmap for Smart Sustainable Cities. Information and communication technology for sustainable development. CRC Press.
Marolla, Cesar. (2016). Climate Health Risks in Megacities: Sustainable Management and Strategic Planning. 1st Edition, Taylor and Francis Group; 9781315367323.

Marolla, C. (2016). National Security and Public Health Implications of Climate Change. Climate Health Risks in Megacities, Taylor and Francis Group. ISBN 9781315367323.

Marolla, Cesar.( 2018).The Global Risk Dilemma. Information and communication technology for sustainable development. CRC Press, ISBN 13 9780367570699

Marolla, Cesar. (2018). Information and Communication Technology and Sustainability. Information and Communication Technology for Sustainable Development, Taylor and Francis. ISBN 9781138486539.

Marolla, Cesar. (2018). Mechanism Design, Risk Mechanism Theory and Its Relation to Information and Communication Technologies, Risk Management and Sustainable Development. Pages34; Taylor and Francis. eBook ISBN9781351045230

Marolla, Cesar. (2018). ICT Strategic Framework. ICT for Sustainable Development. CRC Press. DOI:10.1201/9781351045230-8

Marolla, C. (2016). Building Resilience and Sustainable Development in the Face of Disasters and Climate Change. Climate Health Risks in Megacities, Taylor and Francis https://doi.org/10.1201/9781315367323 ISBN9781315367323

Marolla, C. (2016). Management Strategy for Effecting Change within Megacities ISBN 9781315350233
Marolla, C. (2016). Risk Management, Strategy, and Leadership: Leadership as the Starting Point of Strategy: Strategic Adaptive. In Climate Health Risks in Megacities (pp. 285-308). CRC Press.

Marolla, Cesar. (2016). “Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions and Climate Change Risks.” In Climate Health Risks in Megacities, pp. 71-76. CRC Press.
Marolla, C. (2016). Los Angeles Megacity Case Study. Climate Health Risks in Megacities: Sustainable Management and Strategic Planning. CRC Press. ISBN9781351045230

Crutzen, N., & Marolla, C. (2017). The Epoch of Smart Cities and Innovation. Climate Health Risks in Megacities: Sustainable Management and Strategic Planning, 111-115.

Marolla, C. (2016). Global Health Risks, the Urban Poor, and Climate Change Impacts.
In Climate Health Risks in Megacities (pp. 159-188). CRC Press.

Marolla, C. (2016). Turning Theory into Reality: The Benefits of a Risk Management Approach: Preparing the Risk Management Assessment against Climatic. In Climate Health Risks in Megacities (pp. 89-118). CRC Press.

Marolla, C. (2016). Global Health Risks, the Urban Poor, and Climate Change Impacts.
In Climate Health Risks in Megacities (pp. 159-188). CRC Press.

Marolla, C. (2016). Measuring Vulnerabilities towards Resilience. Climate Health Risks in Megacities: Sustainable Management and Strategic Planning. CRC Press.

Marolla, Cesar. (2013). Climate Change Impacts on Health: The Urban Poor in the World’s Megacities. Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard. DASH. Harvard University Library. https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/37366310

A story in Research

A few words on how my peer-reviews research started:

This book had humble beginnings as a thesis for Cesar Marolla’s master’s degree in sustainability and environmental management at Harvard University. I had the pleasure of being Cesar’s thesis director, and I knew upon first reading that this was an important piece of work. Climate Health Risks in Megacities: Sustainable Management and Strategic Planning is the first book that puts forth a solution to pressing climate change issues that affect the world’s most vulnerable population—the urban poor—in a way that avoids making climate change a partisan issue. Further, it makes use of International Organization for Standardization (ISO) frameworks as part of the solution, providing an objective, clear, and auditable process, with a defined process for continuous improvement.
Climate change is a particularly difficult issue to address. First, there is the sheer scope of it. While weather at the local level may be consistent, hotter, or colder, it is affected by change happening on a global level. Second, those who caused a majority of the emissions that led to this situation are not willing to pay a proportional share of the cost to mitigate the climate changes
caused by their generational actions. Last, the uncertainty of what will actually happen leads many country leaders to pause before investing, since the timing of catastrophic climatic impacts is uncertain. Solving large, complex problems is often left for future generations. Those of us in the business of climate change feel that “kicking the can down the road” for future generations to address is not a viable solution.
The time to act is now, and several forward-thinking city mayors, spurred into action by witnessing the effects of climate change on their cities firsthand, have decided to act.
Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy showed that even major cities in the wealthiest nation in the world lack continuity plans, redundant systems, backup power, and communications. A simple storm can render a city like New York inoperable for weeks, if not months. Further, while there was broad scale effects felt everywhere, the effects were felt hardest by the working
poor. There are stories even today of lower income people being displaced over a year after Sandy.
This book provides case studies in several megacities: New York, Los Angeles, Beijing, Rio de Janeiro, London, Mumbai, and Lagos. Cesar looks at key issues like physical location, proper sanitation, food security, and vector-borne diseases against the backdrop of climate change, and models its effect on the urban poor. For example, urban poor often inhabit the least
desirable land, flood zones that are especially susceptible to climate events.
Further, extreme rainfall variability affects crop production, which impacts food prices, which impacts the poor the most. Frequent flooding also tends to cause an increase in insect population, which causes an increase in vectorborne diseases like Chagas and malaria.
Addressing the issues and challenges associated with mitigating the effects of climate change is enormously difficult. However, this book lays out a framework for action. By using established international standards that provide step-by-step guidance, along with a compelling business case for action, cities that face harmful climate impacts can begin to systematically address these risks. Since this award-winning thesis has been published, Cesar has gotten the mayors of New York, Los Angeles, and Rio interested in this approach. By presenting an approach to address climate impact that avoids partisanship and instead focuses on developing a compelling business case, cities across the world can begin to lay out a long-term plan for action.
Standards-based solutions refer to the “plan–do–check–adjust” model for carrying out change. Many have planned climate mitigation and adaptation strategies, but often faced opposition if they did not address the issue comprehensively.
The beauty of this book, and the ideas Cesar puts forward, is that it provides a plan—a starting point. However, this starting point provides many useful checks, balances, adjustments for constraints and, most important, an opportunity to adjust the approach. No plan is perfect, but the
only safe plan is one never started. Opportunities to mitigate the effects of
climate change are disappearing rapidly. The time for planning is over. The time to do is now. This book shows us how.

Richard Goode
Executive Director, Ernst & Young, LLC
Adjunct Professor, Harvard University and Tufts University’s Gordon Institute

The numbers

According to the World Bank report Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty (Hallegatte et al., 2016), poor households are more exposed to floods than other households. The poor settle in risky areas due to lower prices and land scarcity. The correlation between poverty and natural disasters detrimentally affects city dwellers because of exposure and vulnerability, as natural disasters increase inequality and may contribute to a
decoupling of economic growth and poverty reduction. Hence, disasters are found to aggravate poverty (Hallegatte et al., 2016). The Harvard University Center for International Development conducted a study titled Impact of Natural Disasters on Human Development and Poverty at the Municipal Level in Mexico (Rodriguez-Oreggia et al., 2010) and stated that poverty worsened in Mexico municipalities between the 2000 and 2005 floods and droughts. Food poverty increased by 3.6%, which is about an 8% increase in the food poverty of those municipalities who experienced a disaster. This figure represents a 5.8% increase on average for affected municipalities and asset poverty by
1.5%, which is about a 2.3% increase in poverty rates for areas impacted by the climatic event. Therefore, the study shows that natural disasters reduce human development and increase poverty, and this effect can be sizeable: The average impact on human development in the affected areas is similar to going back 2 years in terms of their human development gains over the 5-year period reviewed. Hence, the impact of natural disasters in the studied areas is higher with lower levels of human development, whereas the wealthier municipalities have not experienced the aforementioned (Rodriguez-Oreggia et al., 2010). Another example is Ethiopia’s famine incidence in the 1980s. It took a decade on average for asset-poor households to bring livestock holdings back to prefamine levels after the 1984–1985 famine (Dercon, 2003). These events have shown the susceptibility of the urban poor
to external factors that magnify the risks associated with poverty and climatic
impacts.

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Feel free to send a note and find synergies. My current research topics are climate, public health, and urbanization. As sub-topics I am investigating climate change impacts on mental health in developing countries and developing strategic frameworks and policy-making process related to sustainable urban systems. 

My work with the World Bank: “Climate Resilience and Investment Program for the sub-Saharan Africa” is done and the World Bank note will be published soon! A special Thanks to Nobel Laureate, Dr. Kenneth Strzepek, for the great opportunity to help on the most pressing issues we face today.