Resilience refers to the ability to resist, recover from, or adapt to the effects of a shock or a change. Resilience is a long-term approach, not only focussed on the ability to bounce back but also integrating adaptation and transformation while undergoing change.
Resilience can take several forms:
· Increasing capacity to absorb or withstand a sudden shock – resistance.
· Having capacity to cope with disruption – preparedness.
· Being able to bounce back after an event – recovery.
· Being able to maintain basic functions and structures – adaptation.
· Having capacity to create further change for improvement, thereby taking advantage of an adverse situation – transformation.
Resilience has some limitations. Adaptation or transformation is not a benefit to everyone. One of the major concerns is that resilience doesn’t capture social dimensions or power relations within a community or at the household level. Moreover, resilience is not directly related positively with well-being; some households may increase their resilience, but at the expense of their own well-being.
Natural hazards and resilience
Resilience is often associated with natural hazards, such as earthquakes or flooding.
The San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association defines ‘seismic resilience’ as the ability of the city to remain safe and usable after a major earthquake. A resilient city can contain the effects of earthquakes when they occur, carry out recovery activities in ways that minimize social disruption, and rebuild following earthquakes in ways that mitigate the effects of future earthquakes. It also states: ‘San Francisco’s current disaster planning efforts are moving in the right direction, but the lack of public knowledge about the current performance of our buildings and lifelines is hindering our ability to become a resilient city.’
In Vancouver, Canada, the ‘West Coast Transmission building’, built in 1969, is now dwarfed among the towering skyscrapers of the city. The building is an iconic example of earthquake-resistant design. The city of Vancouver sits close to a major subduction plate boundary on the west coast of Canada and is at risk of high-magnitude earthquakes.
The award-winning 12-storey building is suspended from cables hung around a central concrete core which houses the lift shaft and the main entrance. The distinctive suspended structure is designed to be resistant to seismic shocks. In 2013 the building was refurbished into luxury flats - testament to the enduring appeal of the functional design. Buildings designed to resist earthquakes in hazard zones are a good example of an engineering approach to resilience against seismic risk.
West Coast Transmission building, Vancouver
The Netherlands, a country situated primarily below sea level, has always been at the forefront of innovation in water management, with a thousand-year history of building dykes and other control structures to protect against flooding. But with climate change, the country is seeing rising seas and heavier storms further challenge its ability to live with water.
The city of Rotterdam has chosen to tackle the threats associated with impending climate change and flooding risks by embracing it as a chance to strengthen the main ambitions of the city. Surrounded by water, the Dutch delta city is looking to design innovations that turn the city into a sponge, creating countless spaces for absorbing and storing rainwater, including water plazas, green roofs, and even a water storage facility in an underground parking garage. These spaces not only reduce flooding in the city, but also connect water to opportunity, recreation, and beautification.
As global leaders in living with water, the Dutch are exporting their expertise to other cities facing threats from climate change and sea level rise, creating jobs, and growing their economy as a result. For the Dutch, learning to live with water and adapting to a changing delta environment start at a young age. Children’s books depict lessons about canals, and students compete in state-sanctioned sandcastle building competitions coached by expert engineers to see whose structures can withstand the tide the longest. Water is ubiquitous in the lives of Rotterdammers, who every day cross scenic canals that flow through their city.
It is essential that both environmental awareness and education are thorough and ongoing - as critical to the city’s future as floodwalls and water plazas.
Coastal resilience
Several strategies illustrate methods of enhancing coastal resilience.
Managed retreat
• The strategy has been carried out in several places: Northey Island, Essex (1991) followed by larger sites at Tollesbury, Essex (1995) Freiston Shore, Lincs (2001), the Blackwater Estuary, Essex (2002), Porlock, Somerset (2003).
• Most recently the RSPB’s Bracklesham Bay reserve near Medmerry in Sussex has been re-engineered by a £28 million Environment Agency scheme to move sea defence berms inshore and allow an area of marsh to flood.
Hold the line
• This strategy is used when potential costs are deemed ‘high value’, and they need to be protected - this could be urban development and/or industrial developments
• In some cases, rare ecosystems might be protected in this way
• The line is held using engineering – usually hard defences
• However, this option has the most potential to cause conflict further along the coastline
• It could also be temporary in some places, as rising sea levels may make it impossibly expensive to maintain in 50- or 100-years’ time.
Advance the line
• This strategy is very rare in the UK; it involves building defences out to sea – effectively creating new land
• As such it is very expensive
• It is also likely to be affected by future sea level rise, so defences built today would need to be raised and improved in the future
• A UK example is Gun Cliff in Lyme Regis. Here West Dorset District Council and South West Water built seaward of the town’s grade II listed historic sea walls to protect the old town and make space for a sewage pumping station.
Gun Cliff, Lyme Regis.
