Resilience and Urban Risk Management presents the latest progress made in designing resilient towns, and identifies leads to be explored for attaining the objective of systematically integrating risks into urban environments The aim of the book is to provide guidance in designing and planning future cities, and to create a new form of risk manageme
This edited book investigates the interrelations of disaster impacts, resilience and security in an urban context. Urban as a term captures megacities, cities, and generally, human settlements, that are characterised by concentration of quantifiable and non-quantifiable subjects, objects and value attributions to them. The scope is to narrow down resilience from an all-encompassing concept to applied ways of scientifically attempting to ‚measure’ this type of disaster related resilience. 28 chapters in this book reflect opportunities and doubts of the disaster risk science community regarding this ‚measurability’. Therefore, examples utilising both quantitative and qualitative approaches are juxtaposed. This book concentrates on features that are distinct characteristics of resilience, how they can be measured and in what sense they are different to vulnerability and risk parameters. Case studies in 11 countries either use a hypothetical pre-event estimation of resilience or are addressing a ‘revealed resilience’ evident and documented after an event. Such information can be helpful to identify benchmarks or margins of impact magnitudes and related recovery times, volumes and qualities of affected populations and infrastructure.
Governing for Resilience in Vulnerable Places provides an overview and a critical analysis of the ways in which the concept ‘resilience’ has been addressed in social sciences research. In doing so, this edited book draws together state-of-the-art research from a variety of disciplines (i.e. spatial planning, economic and cultural geography, environmental and political sciences, sociology and architecture) as well as cases and examples across different spatial and geographical contexts (e.g. urban slums in India; flood-prone communities in the UK; coastal Japan). The cases present and explore challenges and potentials of resilience-thinking for practitioners and academics. As such, Governing for Resilience in Vulnerable Places aims to provide a scientifically robust overview and to generate some conceptual clarity for researchers, students and practitioners interested in the potential of resilience thinking as well as the application of resilience in practice.
There is consensus in literature that urban areas have become increasingly vulnerable to the outcomes of economic restructuring under the neoliberal political economic ideology. The increased frequency and widening diversity of problems offer evidence that the socio-economic and spatial policies, planning and practices introduced under the neoliberal agenda can no longer be sustained. As this shortfall was becoming more evident among urban policymakers, planners, and researchers in different parts of the world, a group of discontent researchers began searching for new approaches to addressing the increasing vulnerabilities of urban systems in the wake of growing socio-economic and ecological problems. This book is the joint effort of those who have long felt that contemporary planning systems and policies are inadequate in preparing cities for the future in an increasingly neoliberalising world. It argues that “resilience thinking” can form the basis of an alternative approach to planning. Drawing upon case studies from five cities in Europe, namely Lisbon, Porto, Istanbul, Stockholm, and Rotterdam, the book makes an exploration of the resilience perspective, raising a number of theoretical debates, and suggesting a new methodological approach based on empirical evidence. This book provides insights for intellectuals exploring alternative perspectives and principles of a new planning approach.
This book points to three dominant concepts of how to deal with long-term or surprising and also sudden catastrophic changes, with a main focus on resilience. It is dealing with past, current and future change processes in European, Northern American as well as Australian cities and urban regions, and with the challenges they pose to a resilient urban development. Additionally, contributions deal with potential transformations of urban and regional development and related planning and governance approaches.
When disaster strikes in cities the effects can be catastrophic compared to other environments. But what factors actually determine the vulnerability or resilience of cities? The Vulnerability of Cities fills a vital gap in disaster studies by examining the too-often overlooked impact of disasters on cities, the conditions leading to high losses from urban disasters and why some households and communities withstand disaster more effectively than others. Mark Pelling takes a fresh look at the literature on disasters and urbanization in light of recent catastrophes. He presents three detailed studies of cities in the global South, drawn from countries with contrasting political and developmental contexts: Bridgetown, Barbados - a liberal democracy; Georgetown, Guyana - a post socialist-state; and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic - an authoritarian state in democratic transition. This book demonstrates that strengthening local capacity - through appropriate housing, disaster-preparedness, infrastructure and livelihoods - is crucial to improving civic resilience to disasters. Equally important are strong partnerships between local community-based organizations, external non-governmental and governmental organizations, public and private sectors and between city and national government. The author highlights and discusses these best practices for handling urban disasters. With rapid urbanization across the globe, this book is a must-read for professionals, policy-makers, students and researchers in disaster management, urban development and planning, transport planning, architecture, social studies and earth sciences.
This book is on urban resilience – how to design and operate cities that can withstand major threats such as natural disasters and economic downturns and how to recover from them. It is a collection of latest research results from two separate but collaborating research groups, namely, researchers in urban design and those on general resilience theory. The book systematically deals with the core aspects of urban resilience: systems, management issues and populations. The taxonomy can be broken down into threats, systems, resilience cycles and recovery types in the context of urban resilience. It starts with a discussion of systems resilience models, focusing on the central idea that resilience is a moving average of costs (a set of trajectories in a two-player game paradigm). The second section explores management issues, including planning, operating and emergency response in cities with specific examples such as land-use planning and carbon-neutral scenarios for urban planning. The next section focuses on urban dwellers and specific people-related issues in the context of resilience. Agent-based simulation of behaviour and perception-based resilience, as well as brand crisis management are representative examples of the topics discussed. A further section examines systems like public utilities – including managing power supplies, cyber-security issues and models for pandemics. It concludes with a discussion of the future challenges and risks facing complex systems, for example in resilient power grids, making it essential reading for a wide range of researchers and policymakers.
This book addresses different aspects of natural hazards and vulnerabilities, with a focus on prevention and protection. It consists of nine chapters, five on flood events addressing vulnerabilities, risk assessments, impacts, sensitivity analyses, and mitigation measures, two on climate change and reconstruction of natural hazard events such as avalanches and rockslides, and two on tsunamis and volcanoes. All chapters provide relevant information and useful elements for readers interested and concerned about the lack of action or its ineffectiveness in containing the vulnerabilities and risks of possible natural hazards worldwide.
This book explores key theoretical and empirical issues related to the development and implementation of planning strategies that can provide guidance on the transition to climate-compatible and low-carbon urban development. It especially focuses on integrating resilience thinking into the urban planning process, and explains how such an integration can contribute to reflecting the dynamic properties of cities and coping with the uncertainties inherent in future climate change projections. Some of the main questions addressed are: What are the innovative methods and processes needed to incorporate resilience thinking into urban planning? What are the characteristics of a resilient urban form and what are the challenges associated with integrating them into urban development? Also, how can the resilience of cities be measured and what are the main constituents of an urban resilience assessment framework? In addition to addressing these crucial questions, the book features several case studies from around the world, investigating methodologies, challenges, and opportunities for mainstreaming climate resilience in the theory and practice of urban planning. Featuring contributions by prominent researchers from around the world, the book offers a valuable resource for students, academics and practitioners alike.
'Climate Resilient Cities: A Primer on Reducing Vulnerabilities to Disasters' provides city administrators with exactly what they need to know about the complex and compelling challenges of climate change. The book helps local governments create training, capacity building, and capital investment programs for building sustainable, resilient communities. A step-by-step self-assessment challenges policymakers to think about the resources needed to combat natural disasters through an innovative hot spot risk and vulnerability identifi cation tool. This primer is unique from other resources in its treatment of climate change using a dual-track approach that integrates both mitigation (lowering contributions to greenhouse gases) and adaptation (preparing for impacts of climate change) with disaster risk management. The book is relevant both to cities that are just beginning to think about climate change as well as those that already have well established policies, institutions, and strategies in place. By providing a range of city-level examples of sound practices around the world, the book demonstrates that there are many practical actions that cities can take to build resilience to climate change and natural disasters.
