How violence against women and girls undermines resilience to climate risks in Chad

What consequences does ‘everyday violence’ have on the abilities of survivors to protect themselves from further risks? This paper seeks to establish the linkages between violence and people's resilience capacities to survive and adapt to environmental changes, particularly those living in fragile economic and political contexts such as Chad. It investigates not only how the adverse consequences of violence against women and girls affect the health status and livelihoods of survivors, but also their capacities, and those of their household and community members, to further protect themselves from other risks. Empirical evidence collected in Chad as part of the BRACED (Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters) programme shows that ‘everyday violence’ undermines resilience‐building at the individual, household, and community level. These results have serious implications for development programmes and the role they need to play to better promote both gender equality and resilience to shocks and stresses.     

Stakeholder participation in building resilience to disasters in a changing climate

The resilience perspective has emerged as a plausible approach to confront the increasingly devastating impacts of disasters; and the challenges and uncertainty climate change poses through an expected rise in frequency and magnitude of hazards. Stakeholder participation is posited as pivotal for building resilience, and resilience is not passive; rather, stakeholders are actively involved in the process of building resilience. Who is involved and how they are involved are crucial aspects for developing resilience in practice. Nevertheless, there are few empirical studies available to inform theory or show how these issues are addressed. This study focuses on revealing how practitioners frame the issue of participation in relation to resilience, its relevance to a changing climate and how, in consequence, they construct practices. Using Hajer's [(1995). The politics of environmental discourse: Ecological modernization and the policy process. New York] ‘Social-interactive discourse theory’, in this interdisciplinary research, we study the frames and subsequent practices developed around a disaster management policy initiative in Australia: the Natural Disaster Resilience Program in Queensland. What emerges from the research findings as critical and requiring urgent attention is stakeholder and especially local government and community participation, and for this to become socially relevant, challenges such as meaningful communication and power structures need to be addressed. What is also critical is to move from experiential learning to social learning. Additionally, the results presented here offer empirical evidence on how broadening the pool of actors can be implemented, and the opportunities that this opens up for building resilience.     

Influencing resilience: the role of policy entrepreneurs in mainstreaming climate adaptation

One way to make development pathways more resilient in the face of a changing climate has been through mainstreaming adaptation into government policies, planning and sectoral decision‐making. To date, many of the transferable lessons have taken the form of technical approaches such as risk assessments and toolkits. This article instead draws on evidence from South Asia to emphasise some of the more tacit and informal approaches used to influence adaptation policy. Despite their apparent significance in policy processes, such tactics are often neither planned for nor well reported in resilience‐building projects and programme documents. Using evidence to populate a typology of influencing strategies, this article looks particularly at the role of policy entrepreneurs who navigate the political complexity of both formal and informal governance systems to promote successful adaptation mainstreaming. It concludes with recommendations for adaptation and resilience programming that can more effectively harness the breadth of influencing strategies.     

The adoption of a Climate Disaster Resilience Index in Chennai,India

Results derived from the Climate Disaster Resilience Index (CDRI)—consisting of five dimensions (economic, institutional, natural, physical, and social), 25 parameters, and 125 variables—reflect the abilities of people and institutions to respond to potential climate‐related disasters in Chennai, India. The findings of this assessment, applied in the 10 administrative zones of the city, reveal that communities living in the northern and older parts of Chennai have lower overall resilience as compared to the flourishing areas (vis‐à‐vis economic growth and population) along the urban fringes. The higher resilience of communities along the urban fringes suggests that urbanisation may not necessarily lead to a deterioration of basic urban services, such as electricity, housing, and water. This indication is confirmed by a strong statistical correlation between physical resilience and population growth in Chennai. The identification of the resilience of different urban areas of Chennai has the potential to support future planning decisions on the city's scheduled expansion.     

Defining disaster resilience: comparisons from key stakeholders involved in emergency management in Victoria,Australia

Three years after the introduction of the National Strategy for Disaster Resilience there remains no unanimously adopted definition of disaster resilience within Australia's emergency management sector. The aim of this study is to determine what the concept means to key stakeholders in the emergency management sector in the Australian State of Victoria, and how these conceptualisations overlap and diverge. Via an online survey, 113 people were asked how they define disaster resilience in their work in the emergency management sector. A data mining software tool, Leximancer, was employed to uncover the relationships between the definitions provided. The findings show that stakeholders see resilience as an ‘ability’ that encompasses emergency management activities and personal responsibility. However, the findings also highlight some possible points of conflict between stakeholders. In addition, the paper outlines and discusses a number of potential consequences for the implementation and the success of the resilience‐based approach in Australia.     

Resilience from the ground up: how are local resilience perceptions and global frameworks aligned?

Numerous resilience measurement frameworks for climate programmes have emerged over the past decade to operationalise the concept and aggregate results within and between programmes. Proxies of resilience, including subjective measures using perception data, have been proposed to measure resilience, but there is limited evidence on their validity and use for policy and practice. This article draws on research on the Decentralising Climate Funds project of the Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters programme, which supports communities in Mali and Senegal to improve climate resilience through locally controlled adaptation funds. It explores attributes of resilience from this bottom‐up perspective to assess its predictors and alignment with food security, as a proxy of well‐being. We find different patterns when comparing resilience and the well‐being proxy, illustrating that the interplay between the two is still unclear. Results also point to the importance of contextualising resilience, raising implications for aggregating results.     

An overdue alignment of risk and resilience? A conceptual contribution to community resilience

A systematic review of literature on community resilience measurement published between 2005 and 2014 revealed that the profound lack of clarity on risk and resilience is one of the main reasons why confusion about terms such as adaptive capacity, resilience, and vulnerability persists, despite the effort spared to operationalise these concepts. Resilience is measured in isolation in some cases, where a shock is perceived to arise external to the system of interest. Problematically, this contradicts the way in which the climate change and disaster communities perceive risk as manifesting itself endogenously as a function of exposure, hazard, and vulnerability. The common conceptualisation of resilience as predominantly positive is problematic as well when, in reality, many undesirable properties of a system are resilient. Consequently, this paper presents an integrative framework that highlights the interactions between risk drivers and coping, adaptive, and transformative capacities, providing an improved conceptual basis for resilience measurement.     

Gender,households, and decision‐making for wildfire safety

This paper considers the impact of gendered norms on decision‐making for wildfire preparation and response at the household level. Focusing on Australia, it provides a theoretical thematic analysis of data acquired in 107 interviews with residents of nine different localities. It builds on existing research on gender and disaster, as well as on decision‐making and wildfires, and analyses the narratives that centre on ‘split’ households plans (where a male partner plans to stay and a female partner plans to evacuate) and disagreements within heterosexual couples as to an appropriate wildfire safety plan. The study finds that gender inequality and differences in gendered expectations are likely to create difficult conditions for negotiation between members of a heterosexual couple when there is disagreement over a plan and that this may contribute to risky decision‐making practices and outcomes. The paper reiterates, therefore, the importance of taking into account the social construction of gender in wildfire research and policy.     

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.     

Ambivalence towards discourse of disaster resilience

This paper investigates empirically how the international aid community (IAC)—donors and practitioners—considers and implements disaster resilience in a specific country setting, Nepal, and throughout the rest of the world. A key finding is that there is ambivalence about a concept that has become a discourse. On a global level, the IAC utilises the discourse of resilience in a cautiously positive manner as a bridging concept. On a national level, it is being used to influence the Government of Nepal, as well as serving as an operational tool of donors. The mythical resilient urban community is fashioned in the IAC's imaginary; understanding how people create communities and what type of linkages with government urban residents desire to develop their resilience strategies is missing, though, from the discussion. Disaster resilience can be viewed as another grand plan to enhance the lives of people. Yet, regrettably, an explicit focus on individuals and their communities is lost in the process.     

Strengthening the role of science and technology in disaster risk reduction: the Chilean strategy

This paper presents an integrative case study of Chile's national strategy of research, development, and innovation (R&D+i) for disaster resilience and progress towards developing the institutional conditions necessary for its successful implementation. The paper covers the period between 2016 and 2021, concentrating on the work of the Chilean Commission of R&D+i for Resilience to Disasters of Natural Origin (CREDEN). Through an analysis of the official records of the initiative at all of its stages, and 29 semi-structured interviews with CREDEN members and stakeholders, we aim to present a successful example of strengthening the role of science and technology in disaster risk reduction. Chile's experience is particularly interesting because its strategy focused on R&D+i and proposed developing an industry of scientific-based technological solutions for disaster resilience. The study also illustrates how strategic interaction between academia, state, and industry can be a key factor in aligning knowledge production to tackle current socio-technical challenges.     

Resilience to natural hazards: How useful is this concept?

Resilience is widely seen as a desirable system property in environmental management. This paper explores the concept of resilience to natural hazards, using weather-related hazards in coastal megacities as an example. The paper draws on the wide literature on megacities, coastal hazards, hazard risk reduction strategies, and resilience within environmental management. Some analysts define resilience as a system attribute, whilst others use it as an umbrella concept for a range of system attributes deemed desirable. These umbrella concepts have not been made operational to support planning or management. It is recommended that resilience only be used in a restricted sense to describe specific system attributes concerning (i) the amount of disturbance a system can absorb and still remain within the same state or domain of attraction and (ii) the degree to which the system is capable of self-organisation. The concept of adaptive capacity, which has emerged in the context of climate change, can then be adopted as the umbrella concept, where resilience will be one factor influencing adaptive capacity. This improvement to conceptual clarity would foster much-needed communication between the natural hazards and the climate change communities and, more importantly, offers greater potential in application, especially when attempting to move away from disaster recovery to hazard prediction, disaster prevention, and preparedness.     

区域水灾恢复力及水灾风险管理研究——以湖南省洞庭湖区为例

近年来灾害恢复力研究在领域的拓展和定义的延伸等方面取得了较大的进步。灾害恢复力作为系统的一个有价值的属性，与风险、脆弱性和适应性一起成为当前灾害综合管理和减灾研究的重要内容。但目前灾害恢复力研究仍停留在理论和概念层面，鲜有深入的实际操作性强的工作开展。为进一步理解水灾恢复力的内涵和实质，为区域恢复力建设提供切实可行的方案，作者在原有对灾害恢复力研究进展进行综述的基础上，开展了以湖南省洞庭湖区为例的洪水高风险区水灾恢复力理论和实践的研究，提出了由自然维、经济维、组织维、社会维组成的四维区域水灾恢复力概念模型，然后细致分析了区域水灾恢复力利益主体的相互关系，提供了初步的区域水灾恢复力评估模型。最后在定性分析的基础上，对洞庭湖区区域水灾风险管理进行了探讨，提出了相应的管理对策和建议，旨在为政府的防灾减灾决策提供科学依据。     

‘Here,I'm not at ease’: anthropological perspectives on community resilience

A number of recent studies on disaster reconstruction have focused on the concept of community resilience and its importance in the recovery of communities from collective trauma. This article reviews the contributions the anthropological literature and the ethnographic case studies of two post‐Hurricane Mitch housing reconstruction sites make to the theorising of community and resilience in post‐disaster reconstruction. Specifically, the article demonstrates that communities are not static or neatly bounded entities that remain constant before, during and after a disaster; rather, communities take on shape and qualities depending on the relationships in which they engage with government agencies and aid organisations before and after disasters. Consequently, the article argues that definitions of community resilience and disaster mitigation programmes must take the emergent and relational nature of communities into account in order to address the long‐term causes and impacts of disasters.     

Beyond men and women: a critical perspective on gender and disaster

Consideration of gender in the disaster sphere has centred almost exclusively on the vulnerability and capacities of women. This trend stems from a polarised Western understanding of gender as a binary concept of man—woman. Such an approach also mirrors the dominant framing of disasters and disaster risk reduction (DRR), emphasising Western standards and practices to the detriment of local, non‐Western identities and experiences. This paper argues that the man—woman dichotomy is an insufficient construct with which to address the gendered dimensions of a disaster as it fails to capture the realities of diverse gender minorities in non‐Western contexts. The paper presents case studies from the Philippines, Indonesia, and Samoa, where gender minorities display specific patterns of vulnerability associated with their marginal positions in society, yet, importantly, also possess a wide array of endogenous capacities. Recognition of these differences, needs, skills, and unique resources is essential to moving towards inclusive and gender‐sensitive DRR.     

The self‐built ecovillage in L'Aquila,Italy: community resilience as a grassroots response to environmental shock

The paper applies the community resilience approach to the post‐disaster case of Pescomaggiore, an Italian village affected by the L'Aquila earthquake in 2009. A group of residents refused to accept the housing recovery solutions proposed by the government, opting for autonomous recovery. They developed a housing project in the form of a self‐built ecovillage, characterised by earthquake‐proof buildings made of straw and wood. The project is a paradigmatic example of a community‐based response to an external shock. It illustrates the concept of ‘community resilience’, which is widely explored in the scientific debate but still vaguely defined. Based on qualitative methodologies, the paper seeks to understand how the community resilience process can be enacted in alternative social practices such as ecovillages. The goal is to see under which conditions natural disasters can be considered windows of opportunity for sustainability.     

Complexity,continuity and change: livelihood resilience in the Darfur region of Sudan

Darfur farming and pastoralist livelihoods are both adaptations to the environmental variability that characterises the region. This article describes this adaptation and the longer‐term transformation of these specialised livelihoods from the perspective of local communities. Over several decades farmers and herders have experienced a continuous stream of climate, conflict and other shocks, which, combined with wider processes of change, have transformed livelihoods and undermined livelihood institutions. Their well‐rehearsed specialist strategies are now combined with new strategies to cope. These responses help people get by in the short term but risk antagonising not only their specialist strategies but also those of others. A combination of factors has undermined the former integration between farming and pastoralism and their livelihood institutions. Efforts to build resilience in similar contexts must take a long‐term view of livelihood adaptation as a specialisation, and consider the implications of new strategies for the continuity and integration of livelihood specialisations.     

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.     

Building resilience to El Niño‐related drought: experiences in early warning and early action from Nicaragua and Ethiopia

Forecast‐based drought early warning/early action has been hampered by both inadequate decision‐making frameworks and a lack of appropriate funding mechanisms. Rural communities in Nicaragua and Ethiopia that have participated in resilience‐building interventions of varying durations demonstrate the value of community‐based actions informed by early warning, forecasts and drought management advice, both before and during the agricultural season. While drought affected all crops negatively, participants were better able to mitigate impacts, were more organised in accessing relief and recovered more effectively. These results are consistent with other research on the cost/benefit of anticipatory actions, use of climate services and appropriate drought management advice. They also confirm the importance of embedding short‐term early action in long‐term resilience‐building. Despite this, formal systems, national and local, remain essentially unimplemented. Systems being developed at global level now need to be operationalised and translated into effective local drought management standard operating procedures for the most vulnerable.     

Building resilience to climate risks through social protection: from individualised models to systemic transformation

This article analyses the role of social protection programmes in contributing to people's resilience to climate risks. Drawing from desk‐based and empirical studies in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, it finds that social transfers make a strong contribution to the capacity of individuals and households to absorb the negative impacts of climate‐related shocks and stresses. They do so through the provision of reliable, national social safety net systems—even when these are not specifically designed to address climate risks. Social protection can also increase the anticipatory capacity of national disaster response systems through scalability mechanisms, or pre‐emptively through linkages to early action and early warning mechanisms. Critical knowledge gaps remain in terms of programmes’ contributions to the adaptive capacity required for long‐term resilience. The findings offer insights beyond social protection on the importance of robust, national administrative systems as a key foundation to support people's resilience to climate risks.