2. Concepts and Theories of Resilience
2.7. Assessment, comparison and conclusion
In this chapter, numerous studies have been reviewed in order to evaluate the current state of the definition of resilience in the field of hazard as the focus of this study. The review also considered the relationship of resilience with two other complementary but separate concepts of vulnerability and sustainability. The various reviewed definitions and concepts provided a better understanding of the term of resilience in general and how it could be conceptualized in hazards and disaster research in
Figure 2-14 Three characteristics of disaster resilience programming Adapted from Béné , et al., 2012
particular. Resilience is best defined as “the ability of a system to absorb disturbance and still retain its basic function and structure” (Walker & Salt, 2006, p. 1). Although finding an agreement about the term and definition of resilience is hard, it often defined as an ability/capacity of a system/community to resist, mitigate, response and recover from the effect of a shock in efficient and timely manner. The literature also indicates that resilience and sustainability are fundamental for contemporary communities and a disaster resilience planning predisposes way to achieving sustainable development. Furthermore, the literature review notes that the concept of disaster resilience has more potential than the concept of vulnerability in hazard research area. The reactions and functions of communities during and after disasters can be viewed integrated and disaster resilience is widely addressed to understanding these interactions. There are a number of conceptual frameworks of disaster resilience in literature, ranging from those that consider resilience as a set of cognitive models to achieve sustainable and resilient cities (Tobin, 1999), to those that consider it as a set of engineering functionality (Bruneau, et al., 2003); (Renschler, et al., 2010), community capital (Miles & Chang, 2008), community capacity (Mayunga, 2009); (Foster, 2012), attributes of multi-disciplines planning (Verrucci, et al., 2012), or place-based conceptualization of resilience (Cutter, et al., 2008) ( Table 2-8).
Although these frameworks prepare a better way to understanding disaster resilience concept, understanding the term and developing a sound methodology for measuring it is still challenging. For example, conceptualizations on linkages between sustainability, vulnerability, and resilience are still missing and depend on whether viewed from socio-ecological systems, global changes, or environmental hazard perspectives (Cutter, et al., 2008). From the methodology perspective, conceptualizing and quantifying the concept of disaster resilience is a serious debate in the literature.
Despite the robust literature, there is still considerable disagreement about the standard mechanism for developing a sound set of composite indicators. These indicators can meaningfully enhance our knowledge about the different factors that are associated with resilience and interactions that are needed to establish and enhance it. Some of these challenging issues are listed as:
1. Indicator building and identification of a standard set for measuring disaster resilience both in different scales and different contexts is still ongoing debate. Although several quantitative resilience indicators have been formulated, the endeavours are in their “infancy” (Cutter, et al., 2010, p. 17), and it remains still unclear whether such indicators are able to obtain the outcomes or processes of disaster resilience concept.
2. Mentioned frameworks could also be differentiated regarding to the number of measurable dimensions, their names, and the distribution of variables between them. Each measurement approach is developed on top of a theoretical framework and required dimensions that should be
incorporated in the measurement. Therefore, there are some overlaps in dimensions and distribution of variables in literature.
3. The quantification of interconnections among a set of indicators in most of existing approaches has been neglected. For instance, in BRIC the impact of percent of population with a vehicle is same as the number of population living in urban deteriorated textures. Whereas, different variables play different role in assessment of disaster resilience. Most of the reviewed approaches allocate an equal importance across indicators. This leads to neglect the existing interactions among the indicators and makes the obtained results inaccurate.
This dissertation, views disaster resilience as the concept that determines the extent to which a community is able to have capability of preparedness and capacity to absorb, mitigate, respond to, and recover from disasters to successfully adapt to actual or potential adverse shocks in a timely manner and efficient way. The primary step for perception the diverse and process of disaster resilience is performed via the development of benchmarking tools that can be reserved as baseline conditions for assessing both the adverse impacts of hazards and components that ban efficient reactions (Cutter, et al., 2008). With this background, the initial focus of this research work is to enhance our knowledge about the multi-dimensional nature of disaster resilience and operationalization of its concept in a specific context with an earthquake threat source. This process will be performed through developing a methodological approach for construction a sound set of composite indicators that addresses the above mentioned gaps in literature.
Table 2-8 Summary of selected approaches Framework/
First developer
Main Focus/
Context
Benefits Limitations
Sustainable and Resilient Community
Framework (Tobin, 1999)
Mitigation, recovery, and cognitive factors of disaster
resilient and sustainable communities/Volcanic
Emphasising critical elements of disaster
resilience, operationalized and
validated model.
Lack of relationship between resilience and
vulnerability, broad variables and attributes.
System Diagram (R4 Resilience Framework)
(Bruneau et al, 2003)
Robustness, redundancy, resourcefulness, and rapidity of community infrastructures/Earthquake
Focus on critical infrastructure systems,
scenario based assessment, multi
hazard and scale.
A general measurement framework without
indicator set and validation.
Framework/
First developer
Main Focus/
Context Benefits Limitations
ResiliUS Framework (Miles & Change, 2007)
Loss and recovery of systems, communities before, during and after a hazard event/Earthquake
Probabilistic methods of loss and recovery modules, scalability to
any scales.
More appropriate for training and education
rather than an actual planning due to complex
behaviour of the model.
Disaster Resilience of Place (DROP) Model
(Cutter et al, 2008)
Antecedent conditions, Inherent resilience of
(ecological, social, economic, infrastructure,
institutional, and community)/Hurricane
Connect vulnerability and resilience in a longidnal manner,
incorporate antecedent measures
of vulnerability and resilience to account
exogenous factors.
Equal importance across all indicators without
considering interdependencies and feedbacks among them.
Community Disaster Resilience Framework
(CDRF) (Mayunga, 2009)
Disaster management activities (mitigation, preparedness, response and
recovery) and community capitals (social, economic, human, and physical)/
Hurricane
Emphasising on the integrating of the
capitals and the disaster management phases, applicable for all kind of hazards.
Conceptualization of vulnerability and resilience
has not been done, narrow dimensions of disaster resilience and aggregation method of
weighting.
PEOPLES Resilience Framework (Renschler et al, 2010)
Comprehensive measurement of a community at various scales
under seven dimensions (population, environmental,
organizational, physical, lifestyle, economy, and
social)/Earthquake
Structured model and flexible methodology for indicator building,
multi hazard and scales, a comparative approach to compare communities with one
another.
Discipline specific approach and less validated, partially
applied.
RCI (Resilience Capacity Index (Foster et al, 2012)
Summarizing a score of regions by 12 equally weighted indicators/All
challenges
A future oriented and comparative approach,
open access which allows to capture all
processes of measurement and
compare studied metropolitans by their
resilience level.
Narrow components and indicators, equal importance of indicators.
Multi-disciplinary Framework for Seismic
Resilience (Verruci et al, 2012)
Multi-disciplinary five topical macro- areas of seismic resilience including (Built-in, planning and land
use, redundancy of infrastructures, resources
and social cohesion)/Earthquake
Characterises elements of physical and social
vulnerability, assess entire risk spectrum
for a critical infrastructure, a comprehensive set of
indicators.
Qualitative analysis can be subjective, the methodology doesn’t give a single resilience score for
studied units, and is not fully validated.