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Enhancing Resilience
David AlexanderUniversity College London
Kesennuma, Japan
An academic perspective on enhancingbusiness and community resilience.
• the concept has a millennial history
• there are many possible definitions
• is it the opposite of vulnerability?
• should it focus on the community scale?
• an objective, a process or a strategy? .
Resilience
RESILIENCE:as a material has brittlestrength and ductility:
society must have an optimumcombination of resistance tohazard impacts and ability
to adapt to them.
Broaderscope andoutcomes
Changingobjectivesof emergencymanagement
Civil Protection
DisasterManagement
Resilience
Civil Contingencies Management
Disaster Risk Reduction
General resilience
Disaster resilience Disaster mitigation
Disaster response
The broader picture
physicalenvironmental
socialeconomic
health-relatedcultural
educationalinfrastructuralinstitutional
RESILIENCECOPING
VULNERABILITYFRAGILITY
SUSCEPTIBILITYOrganisation:• public admin.• private sector• civil society
Community
Individual
Resilience: facets...
...and relationships
Can we really understand a holisticconcept like resilience by breakingit down into its component parts?
Is the category approach helpful ormerely a hindrance to understanding?
Attitud
e
Theingredientsof resilience
Emergencycommunications
Searchand
rescue
Emergencymedicalresponse
Emergencymanagement
Emergencyresponse
Healthsystem
Contingencyplanning
Is resilience a paradigm?
Paradigm: a conceptual or methodologicalmodel underlying the theories and practices of a science or discipline at a particular time.
Is this resilience?
Family home
What does resilience, or the lack of it, really mean?
Proposition: the opposite of resilienceis not vulnerability, or failure to
prepare for disaster, it is corruption.
• corruption
• political decision-making
• shoddy building (often wilful)
• ignorance (sometimes wilful)
• seismicity.
What causes earthquake disasters?- in probable order of importance -
• difficult to define
• virtually impossible to measure
• extremely pervasive, endogenous
• moral and ethical frameworks vary
• links with other ills (black economy).
Corruption
The principalproblem withthe concept ofresilience maysimply be thatwe have askedtoo much of it.
In one sense, the opposite of resilience isvulnerability: in another it is uncertainty.
ResilienceResistance
Risk Susceptibility
Physical(including natural,built, technological)
Social(including cultural,political, economic)
EnvironmentAtt
ribut
es
Source: McEntire 2001
Liabilities
Capa
bilities
VULNERABILITY
DETERMINISMCause Effect
PROBABILITY(constrained uncertainty)
Cause Single, multiple or cascading effects
THE KNOWN
THE UNKNOWN
PURE UNCERTAINTYCausal relationship
unknown
Greyarea
Cascading effects
Collateral vulnerability
Secondarydisasters
Interaction between risks
Climatechange
Probability
Indeterminacy
"Fat-tailed" (skewed)distributionsof impacts
• it is different for natural, socialtechnological and intentional disasters
• the principal problem refers toexceptional high-magnitude events
• 'black swans' do not exist in this field
• neither do 'fat-tailed' distributions(but skewed distributions do exist)
• scenarios for uncertainty are difficult.
Challenges of coping with uncertainty
Interdisciplinarity andfragmentation of effort
Ecology
Geology
(& Geomorphology)
Geophysics
(inc. Seismology)
VolcanologyClimatology
Hydraulics
Hydrology
Meteorology
Architecture
Civil engineering
Geotechnical engineering
Structural engineering
Mechanical &
electrical engineeringInformation &
communication
technology (ICT)
Computer technology
Remote sensing
Risk analysis (inc.
risk identification,
estimation,
management &
communication)
Cartography
Development studies
Economics
Geography, History
Jurisprudence & legal stds
Urban & regional planning
Mass media studies
Psychology
Sociology
Epidemiology
Nursing
Nutrition
Pharmacology
General medicine
Surgery &
emergency medicine
Public health, hygiene
& epidemiology
Veterinary sciences
Health sciencesSocial & spatial sciences
Computational
& analytical
sciences
Construction sciences
Atmospheric & water sciences
Earth & environmental sciences
HAZARD,
RISK and
DISASTER
CONSTITUENTDISCIPLINES
Organisationalsystems:management
Socialsystems:behaviour
Naturalsystems:function
Technicalsystems:
malfunction
VulnerabilityHazard
Resilienc
e
Politicalsystems:decisions
RESILIENCE
Social
Tech
nica
l
Physical
Psych
ological
naturalsocial
technologicalintentionalcompoundcascading
CLIMATE CHANGEADAPTATION
DISASTER RISKREDUCTION
SUSTAINABILITYSCIENCE
OTHER HAZARDSAND RISKS
The concept of resilienceinterfaces with sustainability.
SUSTAINABILITYOF DISASTER
RISK REDUCTION
DAILY RISKS
(e.g.unem-ployment,poverty)
EMERGINGRISKS
(e.g. climatechange,
pandemics)
GENERALSUSTAINABILITY
(e.g. lifestyles, economicactivities, environment)
MAJOR DISASTER RISKS
(e.g. floods, drought,landslides, heatwaves)
RISKSdaily: unemployment, poverty, disease, etc.major disaster: floods, storms, quakes, etc.emerging risks: pandemics, climate change
SUSTAINABILITYdisaster risk reduction
resource consumptionstewardship of the environment
economic activitieslifestyles and communities
SUSTAINABILITY
Sustainabledevelopment
and livelihoods
Sustainablecivil protectionprogrammes
Sustainablefunding
Public andpoliticalsupport
It is often argued that theconcept of resilience is best
applied at the community level.
• a social grouping that may or may notoccupy a definable physical space
• an open-ended concept with nopredefined geographical scale
• a heterogeneous group of people withdifferent views and perspectives
• a power structure that exists for thebenefit of the powerful (elite capture).
What is a community?
SocietyCulturePoliticsEconomyWelfare
HospitalsChurchMedia
Community-based
services
FamilyCommunityWorkplace
individual
Bronfenbrenner's community resilience theory
Microsystem
MesosystemMacrosystem
Chronosystem
Exosystem
• a source of factions and conflict
• dominated by powerful individuals
• indifferent to disaster risk reduction
• lacking in social cohesion
• indisposed to act without coercion.
Communities may be...
BENIGN (healthy)at the service of the people
MALIGN (corrupt)at the service of vested interests
interplay dialectic
Justification Development
[spiritual, cultural, political, economic]
IDEOLOGY CULTURE
Conclusions
Tacloban, Philippines:five beached ships witha community on theseaward side of them,March 2014.
Personalor privateinterestsPublic
interestCultural
acceptability
LESSONS...LEARNED?
Sustainablelessons Uncertainty,
unpredictability
LESSONS...LEARNED?
Incentivesto learn
MAGNITUDE& FREQUENCY
KNOWLEDGESCIENCE
LEGISLATION
IMPLEMENTATION
COMPLIANCE
LAG
LAG
LAG
CUMULATIVELAG
EVENTS
Broad professional training in emergency management
Professional experienceand training
Disciplinary training(e.g. bachelor's degree)
Commonculture
Commonlanguage
Commonobjectives
• advances in knowledgehave had a valuable impact
• the whole DRR problem isbetter known than ever before
• interdisciplinary research and problem-solving have made some progress
• but the balance is still weighted heavilyin favour of a worsening situation.
In a positive sense...
Armaments
Drug trade
People trafficking
Forced migration
Censorship
Tax havens
Tax avoidance
Domination
Repression
Polarisation
Expoitation
Dictatorship
Rape
Attrocities
Denial of asylum
Warfare
Asymetrical conflict
Militias
Terrorism
Poverty
Torture
Enslavement
Suppression of dissent
Racism
Domestic violence
Hunger
Refugees
