Narrow Results

The global financial crisis highlighted the importance of strengthening the resilience of our economies to adverse shocks. In this paper, we take stock of studies carried out primarily within, but also outside the OECD, to better understand the role of macroeconomic and structural policies in spurring or mitigating the vulnerabilities that can lead to costly shocks, as well as the role of policies in mitigating the shock impact and speeding the recovery. Then we offer tentative insights on how policies can be geared to address vulnerabilities early on, mitigate the impact of shocks and speed recoveries, as well as highlight possible trade-offs that exist across policy areas.

Radicalization, as a violent form of extremism, is a growing problem for Europe. Currently, it is possible to find extreme ideologies regarding almost every topic such as religion, politics or sports. This problem, which ranges from personal identity conflicts to complex societal issues, has an impact on several people everyday, especially on youngsters. To confront this situation, the European Union found several initiatives, as a way to face this problem from a scientific perspective. Some of these initiatives face the problem trying to reduce radicalization by working on personal and social skills through education, in such a way the youngster’s resilience is improved. This paper aims to present YoungRes, a European project whose goal is to improve the resilience of youngsters. To do so, it unifies an already created intervention — named Fortius — through the inclusion of video games in the learning process. This paper describes both: (1) how the Fortius program is modified to allow video games sessions and (2) the software architecture designed to allow students and educators to participate in YoungRes project. Finally, different suggestions to include in future versions of the game are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to examine stakeholder perceptions of climate change and local adaptation strategies in the New York City area. A side-by-side comparison of expert and resident opinions provided a clear picture of the region's climate change attitude in the year following Superstorm Sandy. Semi-structured interviews with regional environmental experts provided material for a structured survey, which was then distributed to 100 experts and 250 residents in coastal NY and northern NJ counties. In the survey both stakeholder groups were asked to choose the top three climate threats to the NYC region and rate adaptation and mitigation strategies on a 1–5 Likert scale regarding their ability to protect the region and their cost-effectiveness. Results show that experts and residents agree that sea level rise, coastal flooding and storm surge, and an increased frequency and intensity of extreme events pose the greatest threats to NYC over the next 25 years. While both groups showed a preference for long-term planning over immediate action, experts and residents could not agree on which specific strategies would best serve the region. The aftermath of Superstorm Sandy had a strong impact on both the expert and resident opinions and efforts to monitor stakeholder opinions continue.

Coastal communities are beginning to understand that sea level rise is projected to dramatically increase the frequency of coastal flooding. However, deep uncertainty remains about how tropical cyclones may change in the future. The North Atlantic has historically been responsible for the majority of global tropical cyclone economic losses, with Hurricane Sandy's approximately USD$70 billion price tag providing a recent example. The North Atlantic has experienced an upward trend in both total tropical cyclones (maximum sustained winds > 18 m/s) and major hurricanes (maximum sustained winds > 50 m/s) in recent decades. While it remains unclear how much of this trend is related to anthropogenic warming, and how tropical cyclone risk may change in the future, the balance of evidence suggests that the strongest hurricanes may become more frequent and intense in the future, and that rainfall associated with tropical cyclones may increase as well. These projections, along with sea level rise and demographic trends, suggest vulnerability to tropical cyclones will increase in the future, thus requiring major coastal adaptation initiatives.

The use of green infrastructure (GI) for urban stormwater management has become a big industry, with cities like New York and Philadelphia planning to invest more than a billion dollars over multiple decades into this distributed approach to runoff reduction. Throughout the northeast US, GI systems are typically sized to fully capture all runoff generated within their tributary areas during approximately 90 percent of all wet weather events occurring annually (e.g., $\le$ 25–30mm of precipitation). Though many claim that retrofitting such GI systems into urban landscapes will also help cities adapt to climate change, few researchers have actually attempted to document GI facility performance during more extreme precipitation. In this study, the stormwater capture performance of a bioretention facility located in Queens, New York City was evaluated under non-extreme and extreme precipitation conditions occurring between 2011 and 2014, including Hurricane Irene and Superstorm Sandy. Performance was found to be highly variable from event to event. The site rarely ponded, and overflowed only once (during Irene), for a short time (e.g., 10min), generating an insignificant volume (0.085m³) of overflow, likely because of the high infiltration capacity of in-situ, sandy soils and the facility’s low hydraulic loading ratio (3.8:1). Though the facility was able to infiltrate nearly all the runoff that it receives through its inlet, field monitoring suggests that site performance is often hindered by inlet bypass, not soil saturation or overflow. The site captures 70, 77, and 60 percent of all runoff generated within its tributary area during all events ($n=92$), just the non-extreme events ($n=78$), and just the extreme events ($n=14$). The facility also regularly receives and infiltrates runoff originating outside of its designed tributary area. A regression analysis suggests that storm duration, total amount of precipitation and peak-hourly intensity are significant predictors (p-value $<0.05$) of, and negatively correlated with, the facility’s stormwater capture performance. The analysis also anecdotally suggests that performance might improve as vegetation gets established and/or as the frequency of maintenance visits are increased. Though this study suggests that this facility does attenuate a significant amount of runoff extreme precipitation, future work will investigate factors other than the climate which could be triggering inlet bypass occurrence, in particular GI maintenance frequency.

Lagos, a coastal megacity with more than 11 million inhabitants faces serious development challenges in addition to climatic risks and extreme weather events. There are uncertainties about future disaster risk trends and about how to manage and adapt to existing threats in ways that ensure a just and sustainable development trajectory. In this paper, we explore the changes that have occurred in risk management in Lagos over the last 20 years, as part of a broader endeavor towards sustainability. We draw on transition theory to analyze data collected from a scenario workshop and expert interviews conducted over a period of two years, to understand the influences, processes and actors that shape the adaptation-development nexus in Lagos. Findings based on stakeholders voices present a risk management regime firmly oriented towards protecting contemporary development gains and policies, despite Nigeria’s contested development strategy. Future positioning of risk management is described as either maintaining its current goals or shifting towards a position where development is seen as a root cause of risk and a focus for change. Resilience (marginal changes in development to maintain stability) is not foreseen as a likely future choice for Lagos. This is in contrast to many global agendas that promote resilience and reflects the realities of managing risks in the context of contested development.

A review of risk assessment research in the context of extreme weather events (EWE) reveals that conceptual approaches addressing the risk of critical infrastructures (CI) focus primarily on single components and factors of CI that are at risk. The objective of the paper is to introduce an integrative framework that considers the complex set-up of CI and links it to newer conceptualizations of risk management and adaptation. Drawing on existing risk and resilience approaches, this paper brings together aspects of the engineering community, which currently dominate CI-related research, and of disaster risk reduction research communities, resilience and adaptation research in the context of natural hazards. The paper thereby presents an adapted approach that particularly addresses interdependencies of infrastructures as well as future dynamics. The risk concept applied is based on the IPCC framework and considers the manifold impacts of CI failures upon society, economy and environment. Recommendations for risk management regimes are thereby formulated in the context of EWE. Based on a more holistic socio-ecological systems’ perspective, the approach covers the dynamic transformation of a system’s resilience state. The framework provides a tool and concept to improve the understanding of the multitude factors determining the risks of EWE for CI. Additional research is required for the further operationalization of the conceptual framework, such as the development of indicators, in order to enable the practical implementation for the support of risk management concepts.

Electricity networks in Finland are subject to adverse winter weather, particularly a combination of heavy snowfall with strong winds, causing electricity outages especially in the rural areas. The severe consequences of such events require that electricity distributors and the entire network of stakeholders establish a proactive risk management for achieving enhanced situational awareness during adverse weather events, efficient and effective recovering after electricity outage as well as improved preparedness against future events. This paper shows how a risk assessment performed with an Action Error Analysis (AEA) were conducted in order to enhance the resilience of electricity networks against adverse winter weather. This also encompassed an assessment of co-operation and communication structures about such risks. Adverse winter weather that took place in Pirkanmaa, in South-West Finland in November 2015, serves as a case study and laboratory for the assessments. The results of the AEA underscore the importance of co-operation and communication-related challenges that electricity distributors, rescue authorities and municipalities face in maintaining and obtaining a high level of resilience of electricity networks during and after heavy snowfalls. Against this background, novel ways and measures related to co-operation and communication of stakeholders to improve the resilience of electricity networks against future events are discussed.

The following paper presents an approach to measure the vulnerability of urban megacities with a comparative approach across cities in the Global North and South. The assessment of city vulnerability is key in order to inform risk management and adaptation strategies that are needed to build resilience against extreme events, natural hazards or consequences of climate change. While the New Urban Agenda (UN Habitat 2016) underscores the necessity for inclusive, sustainable and resilient urban development, the findings of the vulnerability assessment in the five selected coastal megacities that were part of the TRUC project — Kolkata, Lagos, London, New York and Tokyo — show that next to resource deficiencies and poverty, issues of governance also need to be addressed if we really aim to increase the coping capacities of urban population to deal with extreme events and natural hazards. While this is a major challenge for the selected coastal megacities in the Global South, the analysis reveals that in terms of adaptive capacities also, megacities in the Global North, such as New York and London, face major challenges and rank nearly on a similar level as Kolkata. Even though such assessments provide only a first overview, it is evident that effective risk management approaches and positive transformative change that can include long-term as well as immediate risk management concerns will not only require improvements at the local level but also significant changes in sub-national and national context conditions. This is particularly true in terms of fighting corruption and increasing the reliability and trustworthiness of local and national institutions and their regulations.

Coastal urban regions in low-lying areas in developing countries are often hotspots of climate change related risks and therefore the analysis of different characteristics of vulnerability, resilience and transformation is an important prerequisite for planning and decision making. Even though the concepts of resilience and transformation have been discussed for some time, they often remain still very abstract. Against this background the following paper aims to illustrate how different characteristics of vulnerability: susceptibility, exposure and adaptation from resilience to transformative change can be assessed in practice at the level of individual households and different city districts. The household survey was conducted in four low-income, at risk areas in the coastal megacity of Lagos. It reveals important differences between the case study locations in terms of perceived capacities and actual responses of households to extreme events and creeping hazards. The analysis of behavioral changes undertaken after extreme events underscores that experience of loss and damage is an important stimulus for people to change their behavior. Moreover perception of actual and future risk management capacities and the performance of government institutions influences risk management regimes at the household level. It was found that at risk populations experienced both, inaction from government and individual households. This is a corrective to the majority literature that focuses on proactive local or government action. In fact, these examples of success may be quite rare and were not found in the four settlements studied in this research. The survey is part of a larger international project regarding the Transformation and Resilience of Urban Coasts (TRUC (2016). Transformation fo urban coasts Available at www.bel_truc.org) funded by the Belmont Forum and the DFG in particular in terms of the research in Lagos.

On 6 September 2017, hurricane Irma made landfall in Sint Maarten causing extensive infrastructural damage and leaving thousands homeless in its aftermath. Despite ongoing relief efforts, the country is still facing a huge recovery task nearly one year on. Amid a new hurricane season, many questions remain about the country’s future and its state of readiness for possible future climate impacts. In response to these concerns, the government of Sint Maarten has recently spearheaded several initiatives supported by the World Bank and the Netherlands, aimed at mobilizing resources to fuel the recovery efforts and build local-level capacity to prepare for future disaster events. These initiatives include several key pieces of legislations and plans that have set out the government’s vision and priorities. For this paper, I draw on these reports along with several key informant interviews conducted in summer 2018 to offer some preliminary insights on Sint Maarten’s post-hurricane situation. More specifically, I explore how ideas around resilience and “building back better”, get mobilized and incorporated in the recovery efforts and plans following Irma, and the particular work these perform both materially and discursively. The paper also highlights the various ways the post-hurricane situation has become a highly contested and politicized post/colonial terrain, fueled largely by the ongoing tensions and power asymmetries between the Netherlands and the Sint Maarten government.

In the wake of the 2017 hurricane season, discussions across the Caribbean have turned to the need to develop more resilient energy systems, particularly through the deployment of renewable energy sources. In this paper, we examine the post-Hurricane Maria rebuilding of Dominica’s electricity system in light of recent scholarship around the Anthropocene and the Caribbean, work that has heightened awareness of the entanglements between the earth’s geophysical forces and its socio-economic and geo-political relations. Drawing on archival research and key informants in Dominica, we describe the history of Dominica’s energy system, and then provide an overview of some of the energy rebuilding efforts in the country’s ongoing recovery from Hurricane Maria, particularly around the question of resilience. While we acknowledge critiques of resilience as a framework for disaster management, we also argue that resilience initiatives foster the potential for an Anthropocene reimagining of geosocial formations within the Caribbean. In the conclusion, we argue that the domain of energy, and in particular electricity, opens up important questions at the interface of social-ecological relations and the organization of collective life.

The discourse on resilient cities encapsulates various analogies, which are further constructed through the work of researchers in creation of several resilience assessment methodologies and toolkits. Despite the presence of numerous resilience assessment tools, there is an apparent lack of participation of residents of the global south within the assessment and iterative transformation processes. The situation, hence, is not truly represented through application of these tools in certain socio-political climates such as of India. Consistent economic growth of India has resulted in rapid urbanization of major cities. But, this has not been supplemented with proper planning, resulting in imbalances in all spheres of city infrastructure. Delhi, capital city of India, has been one of the worst hit cities. The hot seasons have caused thousands of fatalities in the past few years. An attempt is made to review the application of current resilience tools in Delhi against the backdrop of the sustainable development goals. In an attempt to improve the approach of these existing tools, an initial iteration is conducted, hinging on qualitative data obtained through surveying a sample population of the city and accessible quantitative metric data. Possible intervention scenarios are further suggested in view of aforementioned stressors and resilience scores.

Research question: Where are the current resilience tools found lacking in the case of the global south, specifically in Delhi? How can the applicability of these tools be improved without compromising the deliverables yet ensuring an all-inclusive approach?

Key findings:

(1) The city is found lacking in adequate infrastructure facilities to its residents especially within the ambits of basic water and sanitation provision and healthcare services.

(2) The city is relatively unprepared to face unforeseen events, both at the administrative and the grassroots levels. The lack of knowledge transfer and cooperation are largely evident.

The unprecedented number of devastating disasters recently experienced in the United States is a clarion call to revisit how we understand our vulnerability in the face of global change, and what we are prepared to do about it. We focus on the case of Hurricane María’s impact in Puerto Rico to underscore five critical concerns in addressing vulnerability and adaptation planning: (i) vulnerability as a product of flows; (ii) how our beliefs about the capacities of ourselves and others affect local vulnerability; (iii) the role uncertainty, politics, and information access play in amplifying vulnerability and complicating adaptation; (iv) the need for a better distribution of risk and responsibility in adaptation; (v) and the challenge of seizing the opportunity of disasters for transformative change. These five issues of concern were particularly evident in the case of Puerto Rico where Hurricane María’s 155 mph winds exposed existing infrastructural vulnerabilities, institutional incapacities, and socio-economic disparities. We argue that addressing these issues requires fundamental shifts in how we prepare for environmental change and disasters in the 21st century. We discuss promising approaches that may assist researchers and practitioners in addressing some of the underlying drivers of vulnerability, stemming from cross-scalar dynamics, systemic interdependencies, and the politics and social relations associated with knowledge, decision-making and action. We argue that society needs to broach the difficult topic of the equity in the distribution of risk in society and the burden of adaptation. Addressing these challenges and response imperatives is a central task of this century; the time to act is now.

The 2017 hurricane season caused widespread devastation across Central America, the Caribbean and the South-Eastern United States. Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria were among the most intense Atlantic hurricanes and the costliest for the Circum-Caribbean region. For the small islands of the Caribbean, the hurricanes highlighted the acute vulnerability to climate change. The scale of physical ruin and level of social dislocation, however, do not just reflect the outcomes of a natural hazard. Continued structural dependency and outright entanglement in colonial relationships complicated recovery and coordination of aid to affected communities across the region. We argue that the experiences and outcomes of hazards like Harvey, Irma and Maria therefore invite examinations of persisting colonial power dynamics in discussions of climate hazard. Using Foucauldian theory for such an examination, we problematize simply championing resilience, without noting the possibilities for its use as a biopolitical regime of governing life. Such an appraisal, we suggest, might clarify a path toward reparations and climate change justice.

Antiguans and Barbudans have both raised concerns over the disaster recovery solutions put in place to mitigate damages sustained during Hurricane Irma in September 2017. In Barbuda, the potential loss of commonhold land ownership and the possibility of a land grab by foreign investors has tended to portray the island as a victim of disaster capitalism rather than as a resilient community. At the same time, neither island has addressed its vulnerabilities to future extreme events through any substantive legislative response, or immediate policy shifts. While it is vital that we attend to the exploitation of vulnerable populations and the efforts of economic restructuring that follow a disaster to better understand the impact of major weather events, we propose that the threat to commonhold land tenure in Barbuda and the legislative overreach of Antigua’s government on the matter following Hurricane Irma can be understood in terms of various landscape legacies and continuities rooted in ongoing struggles over land in Antigua and Barbuda spanning the periods of slavery, emancipation, and post-colonial independence. This paper situates the past with distinction in order to understand the resilience of land tenure regimes, and the ways in which this resilience affects the quality of post-disaster response in the post-Irma era. Using path dependency theory, we examine the tensions over land tenure in response to Hurricane Irma within the framework of colonial legacies of land rights. More specifically, this paper attempts to examine how these land tenure regimes took shape, and in what ways it has been contested and resisted over time. Our findings demonstrate how the imposition of modern land-use solutions atop a landscape shaped by 18th- and 19th-century practices complicates the mandate to plan for and mitigate the impacts of future disasters. The impact of Hurricane Irma on Barbuda further shows how resistance to legislative change might result in a form of ecological restraint rooted in social-cohesion and commonhold land tenure that is now coming under threat.

There is a growing need for integrated approaches that align community priorities with strategies that build resilience to climate hazards, societal shocks, and economic crises to ensure more equitable and sustainable outcomes. We anticipate that adaptive management and resilience learning are central elements for these approaches. In this paper, we describe an approach to build and test a Resilience Learning System to support research and implementation of a resilience strategy developed for the Greater Miami and the Beaches or the Resilient305 Strategy. Elements foundational to the design of this integrated research strategy and replicable Resilience Learning System are: (1) strong partnerships among community members, government and non-government organization leaders, and researchers from multiple academic institutions; (2) contributions of subject matter expertise and local knowledge to identify information and translational gaps, formulate metrics and evaluate outcomes of Resilient305 Strategy actions from the community perspective; and (3) a comprehensive understanding of civic engagement activities, technological tools, and resilience-building capacities, including policy and financial innovations, from which to advance socio-technological, smart and connected regional-to-hyperlocal community translation through co-design/co-production. Initial results on co-produced metrics are provided. This work produces a new, replicable framework for resilience research that includes a comprehensive set of metrics, translation to communities through structured dialogues, a collaborative process involving all stakeholders and researchers, and evaluation of resilience actions to inform new investments and improve understanding and effectiveness over time.

We synthesize the interconnected impacts of Texas’ water and energy resources and infrastructure including the cascading effects due to Winter Storm Uri. The government’s preparedness, communication, policies, and response as well as storm impacts on vulnerable communities are evaluated using available information and data. Where knowledge gaps exist, we propose potential research to elucidate health, environmental, policy, and economic impacts of the extreme weather event. We expect that recommendations made here — while specific to the situation and outcomes of Winter Storm Uri — will increase Texas’ resilience to other extreme weather events not discussed in this paper. We found that out of 14 million residents who were on boil water notices, those who were served by very small water systems went, on average, a minimum of three days longer without potable water. Available county-level data do not indicate vulnerable communities went longer periods of time without power or water during the event. More resolved data are required to understand who was most heavily impacted at the community or neighborhood level. Gaps in government communication, response, and policy are discussed, including issues with identifying — and securing power to — critical infrastructure and the fact that the state’s Emergency Alert System was not used consistently to update Texans during the crisis. Finally, research recommendations are made to bolster weaknesses discovered during and after the storm including (1) reliable communication strategies, (2) reducing disproportionate impacts to vulnerable communities, (3) human health impacts, (4) increasing water infrastructure resilience, and (5) how climate change could impact infrastructure resilience into the future.

This reflective commentary is a facilitated exchange between two retired professionals in community risk management for extreme weather events – in two different cultural contexts. Paul Cobbing (formerly CEO UK National Flood Forum) and Ewan Waller (Australian land, forest and bush fire manager and consultant with forty years’ experience) share their insights gained through long-standing experience of working with and for communities. The facilitator is an academic researcher in community-based water risk management. Using case-study examples from their national contexts, they collectively reflect on the role of communities throughout the resilience cycle; the contribution of traditional lay knowledges and cultural practices in local resilience building; the harnessing of different knowledge flows; the importance of understanding communities; the values needed at intersections between communities with the professional world; the implications for the changing roles of risk management agencies; opportunities and blocks or impediments to collaboration; and what matters in the management of partnerships and in drawing strengths in crises. The three discussants conclude by highlighting seven important cross-cutting themes or principles needed in community-led approaches that give or return power to communities to shape the place in which they live, alongside others. These connect different types of local knowledge (indigenous, lay, experiential) for community-centered learning across settings.

In a time of many extremes — climate, pandemic, isolation — there is strength in community linkages that can provide resilience through arts-generated connections. The arts-led recovery approach to communities suffering extreme events and social isolation offers the capacity to use applied storytelling as both individual and social practice, and to generate creative contributions to social change. This paper will explore the extent to which, in bringing people together, the arts can create spaces that are open and conducive to real dialogue and engagement, developing resilience with wider applications. Monkivitch (EO of Creative Recovery Network) talks of listening to the ecology of voices, advocating for the voice of the artist to be central to government recoveries from extreme events. The intent of looking at co-creative systems or ecologies is to explore beyond disciplinary boundaries and articulate a social purpose both for the artists and the community involved in the curation. The creative arts process, in extreme events contexts, offers engagement with and empowerment of the community to develop and sustain resilience and adaptability. In this paper, a team of artists and academics with expertise in community participation, applied storytelling, socially-engaged arts and water risk management, will reflect on a variety of approaches to co-create arts-led community spaces. Two case studies are described to explore collaboration and co-production between creative artists and their communities as a participatory process to develop emotional resilience. The UK-based case study, ‘The Reasons in the Fens’, brought together diverse members of the community to develop and share personal stories and to work with a songwriter to compose a community song about the impact of the flood drought nexus in their region leading to developed empathy for diversities of views. The Australian case-study, the digital Regional Arts Park in Victoria, enabled co-curation using a creative ecosystem design which related strongly to storytelling for resilience. Both case studies offer opportunities to reflect on how a creative ecosystem provides a framework for exploring the disruptive role of the cultural sector in space/place resilience-building. The ongoing purpose of a creative ecosystem, as described in this paper, is in fact to strengthen creative organizations and individuals, which will develop a complex system ‘involving a multitude of people, institutions and places. To flourish, they require access to a suite of interconnected resources and capabilities’ (Creative Victoria (2016). Creative State 2016–2020, p. 19. https://creative.vic.gov.au/_data/assets/pdf_file/0007/54349/creativestate.pdf). The requirement is for the cultural, creative, social and commercial parts of this ecosystem to have meaningful interactions. This creative ecosystem potentially leads to a dynamic model with a vibrant or creative interplay between cultural values and stories. As Hartley and Potts (2014). Cultural Science: The Natural History of Stories, Demes, Knowledge and Innovation. London: Bloomsbury, p. 70) indicate, ‘culture is the “survival vehicle” for groups (and) stories are the survival vehicle for culture’.