Urban resilience in the context of climate change: transition scenarios for urban informality and sea level rise in Guayaquil, Ecuador

This investigation addresses the interrelated challenges of climate change, urban informality, and spatial inequality in Guayaquil, Ecuador—a delta city undergoing rapid and uneven urbanisation. While informal settlements are frequently excluded from formal adaptation strategies, they demonstrate context-specific adaptive capacities that remain underexplored in conventional urban planning frameworks. In response, this study develops a scenario-based planning methodology that integrates computational methods with the potential for future participatory use, enabling the exploration of alternative urban futures under climate risk and flooding conditions. Grounded in a case study of Guayaquil, the research employs qualitative, quantitative, and experimental methods to formulate a multi-scalar Scenario Framework and two digital tools: ScenarioAI for geospatial analysis and visualisation, and Adapt, a platform for scenario exploration. The framework supports iterative and inclusive planning through a circular and multi-dimensional process for scenario analysis. While developed through the lens of Guayaquil, the approach is transferable to other deltaic and coastal urban contexts. The study contributes to debates in urban planning and climate adaptation by reframing informality as an infrastructure of socio-ecological resilience and proposing a transdisciplinary framework for computationally supported and design-integrated urban transformation.