Abstract
Resilience has emerged as one of the major buzzwords for political and academic discussions that pertain to a constant well-being and functioning of societies and infrastructures. While the term has led to the emergence of various initiatives and funding schemes, the diversity of different concepts of resilience and its utility is quite large. The chapter reflects on several reviews that have recently been conducted to analyze the different ways of defining and conceptualizing resilience. Most of these reviews have been performed within current projects on disaster resilience that are funded by the European Commission. The discussion of these reviews serves to highlight overlapping but also potentially conflicting elements within the resilience discussions. Particularly, four questions are addressed within the discussion: (1) Does being resilient mean to be able to “bounce back”, or to adapt? (2) Who or what is resilient? (3) Does resilience target protection against unknown or known threats? And (4) what are boundaries of resilience to related concepts? The chapter then identifies overlap with similar terms such as risk management to provide possible ways forward and strengths and weaknesses of various approaches. It is thus a starting guide for scientists, policymakers, and other relevant stakeholders on how to ensure that resilience can be transformed into a concept that is open yet consistent enough to enable its operationalization.
Notes
- 1.
SmartResilience—Smart Indicators for Smart Critical Infrastructures (May 2016–April 2019), http://www.smartresilience.eu-vri.eu/.
- 2.
IMPROVER—Improved risk evaluation and implementation of resilience concepts to critical infrastructure (June 2015–May 2018), http://improverproject.eu.
- 3.
Smart Mature Resilience (June 2015–May 2018), http://smr-project.eu/home/.
- 4.
Realising European ReSILiencE for Critical INfraStructure, (May 2015–April 2018), http://resilens.eu/.
- 5.
DARWIN—Expecting the unexpected and know how to respond, (June 2015–May 2018), http://www.h2020darwin.eu/.
- 6.
RESilience management guidelines and Operationalization appLied to Urban Transport Environment, (May 2015–April 2018), http://www.resolute-eu.org/.
References
Bång M, Rankin A (2016) SMR—Smart mature resilience. D1.3 Multidisciplinary literature synthesis. Available online at http://smr-project.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/Documents/Resources/WP_1/D1.3.SMR_Final.pdf, checked on 31 Jan 2017
Brown K (2014) Global environmental change I: a social turn for resilience? Prog Hum Geogr 38(1):107–117. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132513498837
Carpenter S, Walker B, Anderies JM, Abel N (2001) From metaphor to measurement. Resilience of what to what? In: Ecosystems 4 (8), pp. 765–781. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-001-0045-9
Chelleri L, Waters JJ, Olazabal M, Minucci G (2015) Resilience trade-offs. Addressing multiple scales and temporal aspects of urban resilience. In: Environment & Urbanization 27 (1), pp. 181–198. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956247814550780
Clarke J, Coaffee J, Rowlands R, Finger J, Hasenstein S, Siebold U (2015) RESILENS—Realising European resilience for critical infrastructure. D1.1 Resilience evaluation and sota summary report. Available online at http://resilens.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/D1.1-Resilience-Evaluation-and-SOTA-Summary-Report.pdf, checked on 31 Jan 2017
Cutter S, Barnes L, Berry M, Burton C, Evans E, Tate, E, Webb J (2008) Community and regional resilience: perspectives from hazards, disasters, and emergency management. CARRI Research Report 1
Ferreira P, Simões A (2015) RESOLUTE D2.1 State of the art review and assessment report. Available online at http://www.resolute-eu.org/files/653460_State-of-the-Art-review-and-assessment-report.pdf, checked on 31 Jan 2017
Holling CS (1973) Resilience and stability of ecological systems. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 4(1):1–23. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.es.04.110173.000245
Hosseini S, Barker K, Ramirez-Marquez JE (2016) A review of definitions and measures of system resilience. Reliab Eng Sys Saf 145:47–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ress.2015.08.006
Jackson S (2009) Architecting resilient systems. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, USA
Labaka L, Hernantes J, Sarriegi JM (2015) Resilience framework for critical infrastructures. An empirical study in a nuclear plant. Reliab Eng Sys Saf 141:92–105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ress.2015.03.009
Luthar SS (2006) Resilience in development: a synthesis of research across five decades. In: Cicchetti D, Cohen DJ (eds) Developmental psychopathology, 2nd edn. Wiley, New York
Manyena SB (2006) The concept of resilience revisited. In: Disasters 30 (4), pp. 433–450. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0361-3666.2006.00331.x
Meerow S, Newell JP, Stults M (2016) Defining urban resilience. A review. Landscape Urban Plann 147:38–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2015.11.011
Melkunaite I (ed) (2016) IMPROVER—Improved risk evaluation and implementation of resilience concepts to critical infrastructure. D1.1 International Survey
Radianti J (2016) SMR—Smart mature resilience. D1.2 survey report on EU-sectoral approaches. Available online at http://smr-project.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/Documents/Resources/WP_1/SMR_D1_2_EU-SECTORAL-APPROACH_Revisedv01.pdf, checked on 31 Jan 2017
Resilience Alliance (2017) Resilience. Available online at http://www.resalliance.org/resilience. checked on 15 May 2017
Rankin A, Bång M (2016) SMR—Smart mature resilience. D1.1 survey report on worldwide approaches. Available online at http://smr-project.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/Documents/Resources/WP_1/D1.1.SMR_Final.pdf, checked on 31 Jan 2017
Suter M (2011) Focal report 7: CIP resilience and risk management in critical infrastructure protection policy: exploring the relationship and comparing its use. Center for security studies (CSS), ETH Zurich. Zurich. Available online at https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/164305/Focal-Report-7-SKI.pdf, checked on 31 Jan 2017
Walsh B (2013) Adapt or die: why the environmental buzzword of 2013 will be resilience. TIME magazine. Available online at http://science.time.com/2013/01/08/adapt-or-die-why-the-environmental-buzzword-of-2013-will-be-resilience/, checked on 31 Jan 2017
Weichselgartner J, Kelman I (2015) Geographies of resilience. Challenges and opportunities of a descriptive concept. Prog Hum Geogr 39(3):249–267. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132513518834
Westrum R (2006) A typology of resilience situations. In: Erik H, David DW, Nancy L (eds) Resilience engineering: Concepts and precepts, vol 2006. Ashgate, Aldershot, UK, pp 55–65
Woltjer R (2015) DARWIN—D1.1 Consolidation of resilience concepts and practices for crisis management. Available online at http://www.h2020darwin.eu/images/documents/DARWIN_D1.1_Consolidate_resilience_concepts_and_practices_for_crisis_management.pdf, checked on 31 Jan 2017
Acknowledgements
The contribution is based on the Grant Agreement No. 700621 supporting the work on the SmartResilience project provided by the Research Executive Agency (REA) (‘the Agency’), under the power delegated by the European Commission (‘the Commission’). This support is gladly acknowledged here, as well as the collaboration of all the partners and their representatives (persons) involved.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Vollmer, M., Walther, G. (2018). How to Demarcate Resilience? A Reflection on Reviews in Disaster Resilience Research. In: Fekete, A., Fiedrich, F. (eds) Urban Disaster Resilience and Security. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68606-6_24
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68606-6_24
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-68605-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-68606-6
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)