Resilience in flood risk management – Exploring its added value for science and practice

Abstract

Abstract. The concept of resilience has become more prominent in the disaster risk sciences and policy documents on disaster risk reduction such as the United Nations Sendai Framework of Action 2015-2030. Originating from physics, psychology and ecology, it currently gains interest in a number of other fields. In line with that, it has been adopted in flood risk management from different disciplinary perspectives. Therefore, the question about the meaning of the resilience concept for flood risk management occurs. The paper derives a core concept of resilience for flood risk management from an extensive literature review. Hereby, it reflects the scope and characteristics of elements and (sub-)systems relevant to governing flood risks. It then integrates this concept in a comprehensive framework of risk management and differentiates it from similar concepts such as resistance, adaptability and transformability. Thereafter, the core concept is related to disciplinary views on resilience and particularly their operationalisation. The focus is on two examples of building constructions and risk management strategies. Interdependencies between application of resilience in these examples are discussed as well as similarities and distinctions of the disciplinary views are indicated. This leads to conclusions on the added value of the resilience concept for science and practice of flood risk management and to identification of questions for future research and implementation.

The Nexus between Socio-Ecological System, Livelihood Resilience, and Migration Decisions: Empirical Evidence from Bangladesh

“…Ayeb-Karlsson and their colleagues [11] define livelihood resilience as 'the capacity of all people across generations to sustain and improve their livelihood opportunities and well-being despite environmental, economic, social, and political disturbances.' Therefore, understanding livelihood resilience helps to address the question of 'resilience of what and for whom' by focusing on the resilience of people's livelihood strategies [12,13]. Marschke and Berkes [14] claim that if a household's livelihood strategies and activities are better prepared for coping with and adjusting to the impacts of any disturbances caused by unexpected shocks, they can be considered resilient.…”

Community flood resilience assessment frameworks: a review

“…In ecology, it is associated with the change that the system can tolerate and the capacity to reorganize or renew, irrespective of the state [12,17]. Application of the resilience concept in urban planning and natural hazard management is recent, as compared to in engineering and in ecology [6,18], yet it has been increasingly used to provide a means to manage risks due to unexpected shocks and to realize sustainability over time [19][20][21][22][23][24].…”

“…It can also highlight how resilience is being recognized and assessed in various fields of studies. Particularly, in line with the increasing interest of resilience-based flood risk management [19][20][21][22], improved understanding of how resilience measurement is being operationalized in the context of flood hazard, merits further analysis.…”

Towards a more systemic understanding of flood risks

“…The latter among others mainly refers to the consideration of various uncertainties and their patterns in the risk reduction strategies. Complementing the current paradigm of anticipating the future, it facilitates resilience of the responses, for example, through flexibility of measures and instruments (Schanze, ). This will improve elasticity of the flood risk system.…”