A review of coastal community vulnerabilities toward resilience benefits from disaster reduction measures

The coast has always been an area of significant hazards. In situations of community self-sufficiency, consequences of coastal hazards might be isolated to regions directly affected by the hazard. But, in the current global economy, fewer and fewer communities are isolated; damage to one location frequently has consequences around the globe and coastal community resilience can have broad-reaching benefits. Hazard responses for the built coastal environment have typically been resistance: constructing stronger buildings, enhancing natural barriers or creating artificial barriers. These approaches to hazard reduction through coastal engineering and shoreline defence efforts have been crucial to sustained coastal development. However, as coastal forces continue or magnify and resources become scarcer, resistance alone may be less effective or even unsustainable, and interest in resilience has grown. Resilience is a community's ability either to absorb destructive forces without loss of service or function, or to recover quickly from disasters. Community resilience encompasses multiple elements, ranging from governance to structural design, risk knowledge, prevention, warning systems and recovery. This paper focuses on hazards of coastal communities, and provides a review of some recent engineering efforts to improve the resilience elements of risk knowledge and disaster warnings for coastal disaster reduction.     

Designing Climate-Smart Conservation: Guidance and Case Studies

Abstract:  To be successful, conservation practitioners and resource managers must fully integrate the effects of climate change into all planning projects. Some conservation practitioners are beginning to develop, test, and implement new approaches that are designed to deal with climate change. We devised four basic tenets that are essential in climate-change adaptation for conservation: protect adequate and appropriate space, reduce nonclimate stresses, use adaptive management to implement and test climate-change adaptation strategies, and work to reduce the rate and extent of climate change to reduce overall risk. To illustrate how this approach applies in the real world, we explored case studies of coral reefs in the Florida Keys; mangrove forests in Fiji, Tanzania, and Cameroon; sea-level rise and sea turtles in the Caribbean; tigers in the Sundarbans of India; and national planning in Madagascar. Through implementation of these tenets conservation efforts in each of these regions can be made more robust in the face of climate change. Although these approaches require reconsidering some traditional approaches to conservation, this new paradigm is technologically, economically, and intellectually feasible.     

Estimating the vulnerability of fifteen tree species under changing climate in Northwest North America

In the Pacific northwestern (PNW) region of North America, climatic conditions have significantly warmed since a predominantly cool phase of the Pacific North American circulation patterns between 1950 and 1975. What are the implications of this shift in climate for the vulnerability of native tree species? To address this question, we combined mechanistic and statistical models to assess where a variety of native tree species might be more vulnerable within their recorded ranges and where they might potentially migrate. For long-lived species that are well adapted to compete, seasonal differences in photosynthesis and water use offer insights helpful in predicting their distributions. To evaluate the general response of conifers to climatic variation across the region, we previously applied a process-based model (3-PG), to simulate the growth and maximum leaf area index that Douglas-fir could attain within recognized forested areas. We then constructed automated decision tree models to define and map the ecological distributions of 15 tree species based on differences in how photosynthesis was constrained by drought, daytime temperatures, high evaporative demand, and the frequency of frost. For the baseline climate period (1950-1975), the decision tree models predicted presence and absence of each species at ∼23,000 observations with an average accuracy of 81%, with an average kappa statistic of 0.74. In this paper the same models were run annually for the period between 1976 and 2006 for each species, and the areas defined as remaining suitable or becoming vulnerable to disturbance were identified based on whether more or less than half of the years fell within the originally defined limits. Based on these criteria, 70% of the species recorded ranges remained suitable, with 30% deemed vulnerable. Results varied notably by species with western red cedar and western hemlock remaining highly adapted, with potential for range expansion in area of up to 50% relative to the baseline period. In contrast, ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine, grand, and noble fir were classified as vulnerable with potential net contractions in their ranges. The analysis was extended through the rest of the 21st century using climatic projections from the Canadian global circulation model with a high fossil fuel emission scenario (A2) and compared to other previously published species range predictions.     

The normalisation of terror: the response of Israel's stock market to long periods of terrorism

Man‐made disasters such as acts of terrorism may affect a society's resiliency and sensitivity to prolonged physical and psychological stress. The Israeli Tel Aviv stock market TA‐100 Index was used as an indicator of reactivity to suicide terror bombings. After accounting for factors such as world market changes and attack severity and intensity, the analysis reveals that although Israel's financial base remained sensitive to each act of terror across the entire period of the Second Intifada (2000–06), sustained psychological resilience was indicated with no apparent overall market shift. In other words, we saw a ‘normalisation of terror’ following an extended period of continued suicide bombings. The results suggest that investors responded to less transitory global market forces, indicating sustained resilience and long‐term market confidence. Future studies directly measuring investor expectations and reactions to man‐made disasters, such as terrorism, are warranted.     

资源枯竭型城市产业转型及其经济韧性——以湖北省大冶市为例

产业转型是资源枯竭型城市面临的重要发展问题,探究资源枯竭型城市产业转型及其经济韧性的演化机制,对实现城市高质量发展具有重要意义。从演化经济韧性视角出发,以湖北省大冶市为例,构建资源枯竭型城市经济韧性评价指标体系,采取熵值法和PLS偏最小二乘法,定量揭示2000—2019年湖北省大冶市产业转型过程中经济韧性的演化特征及驱动机制。结果显示：（1）研究区经济韧性经历了衰退适应、抵御恢复、响应提升的演化阶段,分别对应其经济衰退转变期（2000—2009年）、发展恢复期（2010—2014年）、高效提升期（2015—2019年）,经济韧性水平呈现出“缓慢→快速”的上升态势。（2）2000—2019年研究区经济韧性演化的驱动因子由产业结构转变和创新水平提升转向多要素共同推动,其中居民收入、市场规模、政府调控能力、产业技术水平等因子是推进研究区经济韧性演进的关键因素。（3）产业多元化转型是研究区经济韧性提升的直接动力,以产业相关多样化为传导路径,在多要素驱动下研究区向更高层次的城市生命阶段演进。当压力要素消解、城市状态调整、响应方式优化时,经济韧性将通过激活产业要素、均衡化拓展驱动力来推动产业的“路...     

从安全防灾到韧性建设——国土空间治理背景下韧性规划的探索与展望

新形势下城市巨系统面临更多不确定性风险与未知扰动,要求安全防灾规划从目标对象、战略定位、技术手段与规划理念等方面做出适应调整,通过韧性城市建设引领区域安全稳定发展。对韧性城市的概念起源、理论发展与实践探索进行了梳理和评述,并结合我国“多规合一”后的国土空间规划体系改革,对空间治理背景下韧性规划的内涵特征、层级类型、流程形式与公共治理进行认识与思考;并从深化韧性城市的理论构建与机理研究、转变规划编制的设计思路和实践流程、完善韧性实践中的规划传导和尺度治理、关注韧性建设中的基层治理和公众参与四个方面,提出韧性规划的实践路径展望,力求有序推进我国城市公共安全现代化治理建设。     

Climate adaptation of biodiversity conservation in managed forest landscapes

Conservation of biodiversity in managed forest landscapes needs to be complemented with new approaches given the threat from rapid climate change. Most frameworks for adaptation of biodiversity conservation to climate change include two major strategies. The first is the resistance strategy, which focuses on actions to increase the capacity of species and communities to resist change. The second is the transformation strategy and includes actions that ease the transformation of communities to a set of species that are well adapted to the novel environmental conditions. We suggest a number of concrete actions policy makers and managers can take. Under the resistance strategy, five tools are introduced, including: identifying and protecting forest climate refugia with cold-favored species; reducing the effects of drought by protecting the hydrological network; and actively removing competitors when they threaten cold-favored species. Under the transformation strategy, we suggest three tools, including: enhancing conditions for forest species favored by the new climate, but currently disfavored by forest management, by planting them at suitable sites outside their main range; and increasing connectivity across the landscape to enhance the expansion of warm-favored species to sites that have become suitable. Finally, we suggest applying a landscape perspective and simultaneously managing for both retreating and expanding species. The two different strategies (resistance and transformation) should be seen as complementary ways to maintain a rich biodiversity in future forest ecosystems.     

面向设计的地铁车站防火安全韧性评价*

为提升地铁车站防火安全韧性,以设计方案为切入视角,基于防火安全韧性的吸收、抵抗、恢复和适应能力4个维度,构建基于ANP-熵权法面向设计的地铁防火安全韧性评价指标体系,运用逼近理想解法建立地铁车站防火安全韧性设计评价模型,通过3个已建地铁车站（青岛、沈阳、福州某地铁车站）的设计案例验证该模型的有效性和可行性。研究结果表明:3个应用案例中,沈阳某地铁车站设计防火安全韧性最高,福州某地铁车站设计防火安全韧性最低,需进一步提升防火安全能力。评价结果与各案例的实际运行阶段基本吻合,研究思路和结果对改善地铁车站的防火安全设计具有一定参考意义。     

Living with transience in high-risk humanitarian spaces: the gendered experiences of international staff and policy implications for building resilience

Deployment in a crisis zone is a perilous undertaking. Little is known right now about how humanitarian workers relate social and professional goals to lived experiences of high-risk environments. In South Sudan, ranked as the most dangerous country globally for aid workers, 20 international humanitarian staff were interviewed to examine their sense of place, well-being, and vocation, using thematic and interpretative phenomenological analysis. Subjectivities of humanitarian space hinged upon negotiating physical hardships and social relationships: Juba, the capital, was described as a ‘prison’ and a ‘party hotspot’. For expatriate staff, making sense of spatial, social, and professional transience was sharply gendered and rooted in the subjectivities of risk-taking, crisis management, and career-building. Two policy measures are highlighted here to address the implications of transience for human well-being and organisational effectiveness. Efforts to support teams and structure work environments, altering the humanitarian and vocational bubble, will help to develop resilience at the heart of humanitarian systems.     

The dual discourse of urban resilience: robust city and self-organised neighbourhoods

Resilience has become a dominant disaster governance discourse. It has been criticised for insufficiently addressing systemic vulnerabilities while urging the vulnerable to self-organise. The urban resilience discourse involves a particular disconnect: it evokes ‘robustness’ and unaffectedness at the city scale on the one hand, and self-organisation of disaster-affected people and neighbourhoods on the other. This paper explains and illustrates the dual discourse through a case study on the reconstruction of informal and low-income settlements in the aftermath of the fire in Valparaíso, Chile, in 2014, focusing on the communication contents of two non-governmental organisations (NGOs). These NGOs deployed the discourse differently, yet both called for affected neighbourhoods to build a more robust city through self-organisation, and both suggested their work as the missing link between self-organisation and robustness. A danger in deploying the dual discourse is that it requires people who live in informal and low-income settlements to earn their right to the robust city through ‘better’ self-organisation based on fragmented visions.