Assessment of Urban Resiliency Concerning Disaster Risk: A Review on Multi- Dimensional Approaches

There have been a number of new research published with different methodologies and frameworks in recent years, aimed at improving city resilience to a variety of man-made and natural calamities. As climate change progresses, resilience will become a more important topic in scientific and policy circles that influence future urban development. This review article first provides the definition of resilience. Then it represents some of the adopted methodologies in an extensive way. Approaches including Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities (BRIC), Climate Disaster Resilience Index (CDRI), Disaster resilience index based on Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Composite indicator based approach, Hyogo Framework and so on. This section discusses about urban resiliency assessments to mitigate vulnerability, offer a set of principles and indicators for creating an urban resilience assessment tool. Findings of this study not only address a variety of qualitative and quantitative aspects of urban resilience but also describes about different indicators such as environmental resources, socio-economic and built environment, infrastructure, governance and institutional indicators. Journal of Engineering Science 12(3), 2021, 111-125

Infrastructure design and multi disasters-based land use as the main key to Palu resilience city

Indonesia is located at the meeting point of three tectonic plates, making it at-risk to geological disasters such as volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Earthquake disaster can cause a variety of crucial dangers, such as earthquakes, landslides, liquefaction, tsunamis, and other natural disasters, as one took place in Palu City in 2018. This study aims to identify key parameters that could increase Palu resilience in the face of calamity in the future. This study start with a literature review to determine the concept, parameters, and variables of resilience Palu City against disasters. These parameters and variables were then compared to the current condition. The findings of the literature review generated four main parameters for disaster-resilience cities: disaster risk reduction (improvement of infrastructure design and multi disasters-based land use planning), community recovery, efficient program implementation, and monitoring-evaluation. Furthermore, the comparison of these four parameters to reconstruction activities reveals that Palu city’s post-disaster reconstruction has not fully resulted in efforts to achieve the concept of a disaster-resilience city. This is because post-disaster management efforts in Indonesia are in accordance with applicable regulations, emphasizing recovery rather than mitigation in the following catastrophic events.

Assessing Community Disaster Resilience in Flood-Prone Areas of Bangladesh: From a Gender Lens

The main purpose of this study was to assess the level of community flood resilience with a special focus on gender. A gender perspective ensures the representation of diversified voices in the study. From concept development to data representation, all the steps were completed ensuring gender-based inclusion. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were used to conduct the study. A total of 402 responses were analyzed as the sample. A linear structured questionnaire was developed by using a five-point Likert scale to collect quantitative data. As part of the qualitative tool, in-depth observation was used in the study. The study found that female members of the community lag in terms of disaster resilience comparing to their male counterparts. The scores in different components of resilience assessment framework indicate that there are gaps in terms of level of resilience from the gender perspective. The same disaster can create a disproportionate level of impact on women and men due to an unequal level of resilience. The study indicates that assessing community disaster resilience and introducing resilience enhancement interventions should focus on a gender-based approach.

Examining relational social ontologies of disaster resilience: lived experiences from India, Indonesia, Nepal, Chile and Andean territories

PurposeThe neoliberal resilience discourse and its critiques both contribute to its hegemony, obscuring alternative discourses in the context of risk and uncertainties. Drawing from the “ontology of potentiality”, the authors suggest reclaiming “resilience” through situated accounts of the connected and relational every day from the global south. To explore alternate possibilities, the authors draw attention to the social ontology of disaster resilience that foregrounds relationality, intersectionality and situated knowledge.Design/methodology/approachQuilting together the field work experiences in India, Indonesia, Nepal, Chile and Andean territories, the authors interrogate the social ontologies and politics of resilience in disaster studies in these contexts through six vignettes. Quilting, as a research methodology, weaves together various individual fragments involving their specific materialities, situated knowledge, layered temporalities, affects and memories. The authors’ six vignettes discuss the use, politicisation and resistance to resilience in the aftermath of disasters.FindingsWhile the pieces do not try to bring out a single “truth”, the authors argue that firstly, the vignettes provide non-Western conceptualisations of resilience, and attempts to provincialise externally imposed notions of resilience. Secondly, they draw attention to social ontology of resilience as the examples underscores the intersubjectivity of disaster experiences, the relational reaching out to communities and significant others.Originality/valueDrawing from in-depth research conducted in six disaster contexts by seven scholars from South Asia, South America and Northern Europe, the authors embrace pluralist situated knowledge, and cross-cultural/language co-authoring. Thus, the co-authored piece contributes to diversifying disaster studies scholarship methodologically.

Power relations: a catalyst in the building of flood disaster resilience capacities in the orashi region of rivers state

Climate change-related disasters have in recent years become a global phenomenon with catastrophic consequences. Africa has had most of the consequences of climate change related disasters, resulting in monumental urban and rural flooding, widespread casualties, displacements, loss of property and sources of livelihood. Given the long-term implications of climate change, it is critically important to understand how vulnerable communities respond to the menace occasioned by flooding. The impact of the flooding is felt more in low-lying communities situated along the coastal fringes leaving inherently vulnerable communities to the vagaries of flooding. However, despite of their vulnerability to flooding disasters, some people displayed resilience capacities more than others because of their apparent access to resources and power within and outside their localities. The study investigated the issue, through the application of the qualitative approach that drew the Bourdieusian theory of practice, deploying the analytical concepts of fields, habitus and species of capital to gather useful information from relevant focus groups to understand how various forms of power was employed to capture resources that enhanced resilience capacities in the seasonal flood prone Orashi region of Rivers State of Nigeria. Following the outcome of the analysis of the information gathered from the focus group and a review of relevant literature, it was revealed that most of the vulnerable population displayed some ingrained disposition and the deployment of indigenous knowledge and social capital for adaptation to survive flood disasters. It is therefore concluded that dynamics of power is a key factor in the resilience capacities of the population of the study.