Resilience
Resilience
The new field of resilience has grown with the approach of catastrophic climate change. Resilience can be defined as the ability of a system to withstand and recover from hazards. The question is how resilient cities will be in the face of climate change and other environmental problems like air pollution or natural disasters.
Social-ecological systems in focus
Resilience is understood to depend on factors like redundancy, diversity, available knowledge, and the ability to learn and to adapt. Preventing failed cities is a key concern – especially with climate change. The vulnerability of cities is crucially important, because cities are often national lifelines and centres of economic, cultural, research and innovation activities. Rapid, uncontrolled urbanisation does make cities more vulnerable. The UN's ongoing effort "Making Cities Resilient” uses a multidimensional approach to increase disaster preparedness.
Social-ecological systems in focus
Resilience is understood to depend on factors like redundancy, diversity, available knowledge, and the ability to learn and to adapt. Preventing failed cities is a key concern – especially with climate change. The vulnerability of cities is crucially important, because cities are often national lifelines and centres of economic, cultural, research and innovation activities. Rapid, uncontrolled urbanisation does make cities more vulnerable. The UN's ongoing effort "Making Cities Resilient” uses a multidimensional approach to increase disaster preparedness.
