briefing sheet urban resilience 20110616

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Urban resilience to face greater peril

Concentration of assets and people. Cities and urban areas accommodate around3.5 billion people, including one billion people in slum dwellings. Urban areas

will need to accommodate an additional three billion people in the next 40 years.

Cities are complex physical and socio-economic systems, and they are home to

many people. All these people need jobs, food and water, housing, transport,

sanitation and social services. Cities are sites of consumption and production,

capital investments in infrastructure, business, and people. For the largest 100

urban economies contributed 15,247 Billion US$ GDP, near to 30 percent of the

global GDP in 2005.

Disaster and risk. At the same time, cities are exposed to environmental hazards,

such as heavy rains and storms, ooding, earthquakes, tornadoes, storm surges,volcanoes, droughts, disease, extreme heat and cold. Many of these environmental

hazards occur naturally. Risks are informed to a large part by our choices where

to live. Risks further increase through poor planning, concretization, haphazardly

built or badly maintained infrastructure, lack of awareness, and absent risk

assessments. Risk also can interact with other hazards such as chemical

pollution, or socio-economic dynamics causing food shortages or price spikes.

Poorly understood multi-cause interactions between the natural and man-made

environment are often the underlying cause for poor prevention and emergency

responses can change a stressful condition into a crisis, that again can turn into a

disaster.The potential of loss increases with the concentration of people, assets and goods

over a small area.

Climate change. The effects of climate change will increase many urban stresses.

Conditions which are likely to worse include air pollution, heat islands, oods

and landslides, strains on infrastructure, water and food supplies, ecosystems and

health services, economic disruptions, and cause damage to buildings. Relatively

small increases in sea level rise will have a major impact on cities in coastal areas.

Climate change will undermine economic productivity and together with other

conditions the viability of the city itself.

Costs. Risk is the threat of major human, economic and social loss. Between 2000

and 2005 around 262 million people were affected by climate disasters annually.

Hundreds of billions of dollars of capital stock have been destroyed in individual

locations. Costs include the loss of housing, consumer durable goods, energy and

www.iclei.org

ICLEI Brieng Sheet May 2011

Resilience is the capacity and ability of a community to withstand stress, survive, adapt, bounce

back from a crisis or disaster and rapidly move on. Resilience needs to be understood as thesocietal benet of collective efforts to build collective capacity and the ability to withstand stress.

A broad and systems understanding of resilience is important.

Some general principles are shown in this brieng sheet.

Towards urban resilience

Interconnectedness of

urban systemsThe recent earthquake and

tsunami in Japan illustrates the

complex inter-connectedness

of various risks (earthquake,

tsunami, energy systems,

housing etc.).

It also illustrates the

connectedness of cities today.

The impacts of the tsunami,

particularly on Japans power

generation capacity and

economy, were felt around

the world. At the same time

nations, cities and citizens

extended their support.

Resilience

"Resilience is the capacity

and ability of a community

to withstand stress, survive,

adapt, bounce back from a

crisis or disaster and rapidly

move on. Resilience needs to

be understood as the societal

benet of collective efforts to

build collective capacity and

the ability to withstand stress."

Source: ICLEI (2011).

Briefing Sheet Urban Resilience 20110530.indd 1 6/16/2011 11:27:52 AM


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ICLEI Briefng Sheet Urban Resilience May 20112

other industrial infrastructure, and the breakdown of government structures and

equipment. This is not to forget the collapse of important transport and utility

infrastructures for people and social services, and the invaluable price attached to

human life. If a ood hits a megacity, millions of people, houses and businesses

can feel the immediate effects, and many more the indirect effects. Though the

immediate impact is often local, effects can often be felt globally. Cities and

city dwellers across the globe can support and learn from each other to reducecommon risks.

Greater risk requires greater resilience. The more a society is exposed to risks

and change, the more resilient a community must be. Economic and social costs

will increase where climate events become more intense and/or more frequent.

Ecosystems and urban systems are highly complex and, therefore, often fragile.

The collapse of key urban systems, such as energy systems, can have a domino

effect and jeopardize the functioning of other urban systems. The lack of power

can lead to the collapse of utility systems. Without housing people have no safe

place to sleep. Without transport people may not be able to purchase goods and

access jobs. Without an economy people may have no livelihood to sustainthemselves with. Each dimension is deeply interwoven in the urban fabric. Few

cities are already very resilient, but many more are not or insufciently accounting

their risk exposure.

What is urban resilience?

Urban resilience. Cities are highly complex interdependent systems with

physical, organizational, social, and economic properties. Urban resilience is the

ability of urban systems to withstand certain levels of stress by:

Having exible systems to absorb sudden shocks and slow onset of events.

Distributing stress across systems and avoiding single pressure points.

Restoring functionality in a timely way to contain loss and avoid disruption.

Having substitutable systems, if a major loss in functionality occurs.

Designing systems that safely fail to avoid catastrophic failure.

Developing ability to identify problems and building capacity to deal with them,

establish priorities and mobilize resources to respond, adapt and rapidly move on.

Urban resilience can be understood as the societal benet of these collective efforts

to build capacity in society, and develop the ability of systems and communities to

withstand stress and rapidly move on.Understanding vulnerabilities. Urban systems can be fragile. To withstand

stress a city, a community and citizens need to understand where they are

vulnerable. Vulnerabilities usually depend upon specic geographic, sectoral,

systemic and social contexts. If, for example, transportation corridors, power

supply and telecommunication infrastructures are on ood planes or in storm

surge inundation zones, protected or not, a catastrophic failure of the system is

likely. Where local adaptive capacity is low, livelihoods poor, or dependent on

fragile systems, people are usually most affected. Disadvantaged, marginalized

or developing communities often need longer to recover and move on, if they can.

Adaptive capacity can include social capital, such as social networks, physicalcapital like housing, and healthy, functioning ecosystems. Understanding such

vulnerabilities and risk are the basis for well developed emergency and economic

recovery plans, and for building community resilience.

Disaster Risk Reduction

"The concept and practice of

reducing disaster risks through

systematic efforts to analyse

and manage the causal

factors of disasters, including

through reduced exposure to

hazards, lessened vulnerability

of people and property, wise

management of land and the

environment, and improved

preparedness for adverse

events."

Source: United Nations

International Strategy for

Disaster Reduction, UNISDR

Terminology on Disaster Risk

Reduction (2009).

Resilience

"The ability of a system,

community or society exposed

to hazards to resist, absorb,

accommodate to and recover

from the effects of a hazard

in a timely and efcient

manner, including through the

preservation and restoration of

its essential basic structures

and functions."

Source: United Nations

International Strategy for

Disaster Reduction, UNISDR

Terminology on Disaster Risk

Reduction (2009).

Adaptation

Adjustment in natural or

human systems in response

to actual or expected climatic

stimuli or their effects, which

moderates harm or exploits

benecial opportunities.

Source: UNFCCC, Glossary

of climate change acronyms;

IPCC, Fourth Assessment

Report Climate Change 2007:

Working Group II: Impacts,

Adaptation and Vulnerability.



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ICLEI Briefng Sheet Urban Resilience May 2011 3

Role for local governments to build urban resilience

Cities and citizens. Local governments and municipal authorities are accountable

to and for their citizens. They should ensure that their city and municipality, where

possible, is not affected by disaster or aim to signicantly mitigate adverse effects

and withstand certain levels of stress. Ideally, a city or community is no worse

off than before or during an event, recovers rapidly and moves on. However, the

time required to recover is a loss in itself, expressed in opportunity costs. It is,

therefore, important to account sources of stress and for pre, during, and post-

event impacts.

Showing leadership in integrating solutions. Local governments need to

show and build upon community leadership and political will, participation and

empowerment. Awareness and understanding of risk and risk reduction measures

need to be developed and integrated. This can include safer building construction,

integration of disaster risk management into planning and development practices,

mitigation and preparedness to reduce vulnerability in a total risk management

approach, long-term land use, adaptation planning and accounting for future

climate scenarios.

The assessment of environmental risks and vulnerabilities can include storm

surge inundation zones, 100-year ood zone delineations, assessing the amount of

impervious surfaces and runoff, topography, climate scenarios, heat islands, wind

channels, impacts by changes to biodiversity and ecological corridors among

many other.

ICLEI's current services and contributions

ICLEI has a long standing commitment to building resilience. Resilence is featured in ICLEI's strategic plan

since 2003. At the 2002 Johannesburg Summit ICLEI launched the Resilient Communities and Cities partnership

program. Methodologies and tools were tested, and reference pilot cases implemented. Local Resilience Agendas

was developed to address social cohesion and local vulnerability to extreme events. Current services include:

Resilient Cities annual global forum on cities and adaptation to climate change in Bonn, Germany, are held back-to-

back with the UNFCCC Bonn talks:

03-05 June, 2011

11-13 May, 2012

31 May - 2 June, 2013

Adaptation planning guidance for local governments including:

ICLEI Oceania Adaptation Toolkit,

ICLEI Canada guide 'Changing Climate, Changing Communities', ICLEI USA ADAPT tool;

Implementation of adaptation projects for example:

Africa (5 City Adaptation Network, including the use of Interactive Climate Change and Climate Impact

Training Tool (ICCCI Tool) and Local Interactive Climate Change Risk and Adaptation Prioritization

Training Tool (Local RAP tool); For more information see ICLEI Africa Secretariat.

ICLEI Europe in cooperation with ICLEI South Asia and Southeast Asia (AsianCitiesAdapt), specically

community based adaptation, adaptive water management and adaptation measures in integrated urban

management systems.

ICLEI is the only local government network that supports the Nairobi Work Program (NWP) of the United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Chance (UNFCCC). The Resilient Cities congress, the global annual forum oncities and adaptation, is the Action Pledge of ICLEI to the NWP.

ICLEI also acts as an ofcial observer organisation to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Resilience as place-based

performance

"Resilience needs be

based upon place-based

performance. Urban areas are

built to provide economic utility

and advantages and qualityservices and community life.

They are built to perform. As

part of a place-based system

a more optimized functioning

together of the components

is possible. By beneting

the performance of the area,

efciency opportunities as well

as increased value arise for

the whole area or systems and

not just of single buildings or

infrstructure."

Source: ICLEI, 2011,

Financing the Resilient City:

A demand driven approach

to development, disaster

risk reduction and climate

adaptation, ICLEI Global

Report.



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ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability is an international association of local governments implementing

sustainable development. ICLEIs mission is to build and serve a worldwide movement of local governments to

achieve tangible improvements in global sustainability with special focus on environmental conditions through

cumulative local actions.

ICLEI World Secretariat. Email: [email protected]

2011 by ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability. All rights reserved. May 2011

Key Contacts

ICLEI World Secretariat

Capacity Center

Kaiser-Friedrich-Strasse 7

D-53113 Bonn, Germany

Tel: +49-(0)228/ 976299-00

Fax:+49-(0)228/ 976299-01

Email: [email protected]

www.iclei.org

Resilient Cities Congress

Secretariat

Tel: +49-(0)228/ 976299-28

Email: [email protected]/resilient-cities

ICLEI Brieng Sheets are a service of the ICLEI World Secretariat

z ICLEI Brieng Sheets provide background information to current themes related to

local and urban sustainability.

z www.iclei.org/briengsheets

z Contributors to this Brieng Sheet: Richard Simpson (ICLEI World Secretariat),Steve Gawler (ICLEI Oceania Secretariat), Alice Balbo (ICLEI World Secretariat),

Adrien Labaeye.

Sources and further reading

z ICLEI, 2007, Resilient Communities and Cities Initiative.

z ICLEI, 2011, Financing the Resilient City: A demand driven approach to development,

disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation, ICLEI Global Report.

z www.unisdr.org/english/campaigns/campaign2010-2011/cities/.

z www.cityriskpedia.com/.

z Seymoar, N.-K., 2005, Sustainable Cities, Strengthening Community Resilience,

International Center for Sustainable Cities.

z Tierney and Bruneau, 2007, Conceptualizing and Measuring Resilience: A key to

disaster loss reduction, TR News 2050 May June 2007.

z

Tyler, S. et al., 2010, Planning for Urban Climate Resilience: Framework andExamples from the Asian Cities, Boulder, Colorado.

z UNISDR's Making Cities Resilient Campaign and Earthquakes and Megacities

Initiative (EMI) showcase City Risk Proles and Practices.

z UNISDR, 2010, Strengthening climate change adaptation through effective disaster

risk reduction, Brieng Note 03.

www.iclei.org

Taking action. Local governments can assess and enhance the resilience of their

own administrative buildings and service functions. They can provide information

and education campaigns, research on future impacts, environmental risks and

identify measures to build resilience. They can plan to mitigate impacts, facilitate

risk insurances and strengthen micro-nance.

By providing warning systems they can protect infrastructure, and enable effective

emergency relief. Cities can regulate and reduce vulnerable activities throughregulated land-use zoning and relocating vulnerable sites, improving planning

and building codes. In essence, local governments need to develop long-term

strategies to adapt to climate change and build resilience of communities; and

build institutional and legal frameworks to support actions and capacity.

A supportive multi-level governance system is needed to enable and strengthen

locally implemented bottom-up actions that allow for decentralized and self-

reliant solutions. These can account for unique aspects of urban areas and many

tools, guidelines and approaches already exist for local actors and leaders.

UNISDR's Making Cities

Resilient Campaign -

Ten point checklist:z Clear organizational and

coordination responsibilities;

z Assign a budget and

incentives to public andprivate actors;

z Assess and raisingawareness of hazards,vulnerabilities and risks;

z Invest and maintain in criticalinfrastructure (e.g. stormdrainage);

z Ensure safety of schools andhealth facilities;

z Enforce relevant regulationsand planning principles(building and land-usecodes);

z Provide education andtraining;

z Protect ecosystems andnatural buffers;

z Install early warningsystems and emergencymanagement capacities;

z Provide for the needs ofaffected population.

See www.unisdi.org

briefing sheet urban resilience 20110616

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