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Building Resilience: Social Capital in Post-Disaster Recovery

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... This ability to attract knowledge in the post-event period represents the resilience of the city (as the capacity to recover quickly from troubles) that attracts and generates knowledge more markedly than it did previously. The term resilience provides a linking concept for understanding how both humans and urban ecosystems respond to traumatic events and what factors explain the pace and trajectory of human-ecosystem recovery and change (Gotham and Powers, 2015b). ...
... Recent years have witnessed the growth of interdisciplinary literature that seeks to identify the indicators, measures, and processes of resilience in communities affected by disasters. The term resilience provides a linking concept for understanding how both humans and urban ecosystems respond to traumatic events and what factors explain the pace and trajectory of human-ecosystem recovery and change (Gotham and Powers, 2015b).Rather, resilience implies the capacity for renewal, regeneration, and re-organization when faced with disturbance (Walker et al., 2004;Folke, 2006). ...
... Temporal development that could be extended to have a more precise analysis of the phenomenon in the medium-long term. Following the Gotham and Greenberg works (2014;2015b) an optimal time horizon could be 40 years, but this would not take into account the technological development in various sectors. ...
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This study examines the role of cities' human capital when geographical areas faced a natural disaster. It focuses on two important earthquakes in the last 16 years in Italy (Abruzzo, 2009 and Emilia-Romagna, 2012) in order to explain the linkage between students' mobility and city attraction post-natural disasters. Using the ordinary least-squares method (OLS), we evaluate students' mobility of more than 3.100.000 students enrolled in the bachelor's and master's degree programs in the aforementioned regions and focus on 1.280.000 students that move from one region to another one and 50.000 that move from another country to the cities taken into consideration. The result shows that human capital and knowledge flow inbound measured in terms of national and international students are strongly related to the natural event that affect the geographical area taken into consideration in the following period.
... This fact demonstrates that the data used in this study included people who have continued to participate in the cooking class. Therefore, the data included the effect of intensity or frequency of social participation suggested in previous studies [47,48]. ...
... Such aspects encourage the re-establishment of socialization and fellowship around a table as well as improvement in mental health and emotional recovery from the physical and emotional toll such crises can have. Establishing a cooking class as a post-disaster rehabilitation for social cohesion is a new method to break through previous post-disaster social participation theories [43,47,48]. The most beneficial and practical aspect of this study is the social dining methodologies designed to embrace local culture and cuisine to create a sense of normalcy in a post-disaster context. ...
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We explored the association between the motivation for and effects of cooking class participation in disaster-affected areas following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. We conducted questionnaire surveys in January and February 2020, and applied three Poisson regression models to a cross-sectional dataset of participants, analyzing three perceived participation effects: increase in new acquaintances and friends, increase in excursion opportunities, potential for gaining motivation, and a new sense of life purpose. We also applied the interaction term of motivation variables and usual eating patterns (eating alone or with others). We obtained 257 valid responses from 15 cooking venues. The interaction term for participants' motivation and eating patterns was associated with their perceived participation effects. "Motivation for nutrition improvement × eating alone" was positively associated with an increase in new acquaintances and friends (IRR: 3.05, 95% CI, 1.22-7.64). "Motivation for increasing personal cooking repertoire × eating alone" was positively associated with increased excursion opportunities (IRR: 5.46, 95% CI, 1.41-21.20). In contrast, the interaction effect of "motivation of increasing nutrition improvement × eating alone" was negatively associated with increased excursion opportunities (IRR: 0.27, 95% CI, 0.12-0.69). The results show that the cooking class was effective, as residents' participation improved their nutritional health support and increased their social relationships.
... Aldrich's classification of social capital in its bonding, bridging and linking components, is a helpful framework to identify social resiliency. We mapped social ties in the hot spots and cold spots areas by differentiating between strong connections between individuals struggling with drug use disorder and others who are emotionally close to them (bonding), as well as potential acquaintances or individuals loosely connected (bridging) and ties to individuals in power (linking) (Aldrich & Meyer, 2015;Gotham & Powers, 2015). Bonding is often described as "good will, fellowship, mutual sympathy, and social intercourse among a group of individuals and families who make up a social unit" (Hanifan, 1916). ...
... Bridging ties may be especially useful during and after disasters or major social disruptions as these network members may be geographically distant from survivors and therefore better situated to provide aid. For example, religious communities outside New Orleans in areas such as Baton Rouge and Biloxi immediately opened up shelters in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (Aldrich, 2011;Gotham & Powers, 2015). Similarly, in the case of the opioid crisis, when individuals who struggle with substance use disorder are sent to detox and rehabilitation centers, their social ties become weaker, and connections with family members or close friends are hard to maintain. ...
Chapter
Social support is considered an important factor in the recovery of individuals, who suffer from drug use disorder. Traditional drug treatment interventions have mainly focused on the individual without taking into consideration the social and environmental conditions that may support or reduce drug use. By combining a social capital framework with geospatial research methodologies, we mapped hot spots and cold spots within the 23 Boston neighborhoods and identified where social ties were stronger or weaker. The spatial correlation analysis and Geographically Weighted Regression demonstrated that in areas where social capital is low, there is a moderately high incidence of opioid deaths and sick assist calls. Our analysis shows that in neighborhoods where residents are involved in charitable organizations, where people gather around religious organizations, or where unions are more active, people help each other more and might be aware of actions to take to prevent opioid-related deaths.
... The scholarly study has increased due to the rising importance of the "One Community at a Time" concept. The role of social capital [3,[20][21][22], local knowledge [5,12,23], governance [24][25][26][27], preparedness and response capacity [28][29][30], and adaptive infrastructure [31][32][33] are just a few recent topics that have been covered in recent literature concerning this localized approach to resilience. Although these studies have shed light on important issues, it is still unclear how the "One Community at a Time" approach's essential components may be successfully operationalized in reality [34]. ...
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Background Resilience is vital for facing natural disasters and public health challenges. Despite the significance of resilience-building activities, there is a scarcity of locally-tailored planning and response strategies, leaving communities incapable of addressing the unique challenges posed by natural disasters and public health crises. This study aims to explore how the “One Community at a Time” approach enhances community resilience in facing natural hazards and public health challenges. Methods A systematic review was conducted over journal articles published from January 2001 to April 2023 through PRISMA approach. Multiple databases such as Web of Science and Scopus were thoroughly searched. We used independent screening by two researchers and painstaking data extraction using standardized forms. This approach was adopted to assure the reliability, validity, and precision of our study selection and analysis. The included studies’ quality was evaluated by the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. Results In the evaluation, 35 studies were deemed eligible for inclusion and underwent in-depth examination. Several major components of “One Community at a Time” have been identified, including social capital and networks, local knowledge and learning, effective governance and leadership, preparedness and response capacity, and adaptive infrastructure and resources. This framework highlights the significance of individualized approaches to resilience-building initiatives, recognizing that each community has specific strengths, needs, and challenges. Conclusion Relevant stakeholders can adapt suitable resilient strategies to help prepare and recover from natural hazards and public health challenges. By adopting a localized strategy, stakeholders can collaborate to develop a culture of readiness and resilience, ultimately leading to more sustainable and resilient communities. This framework advises community-based groups, local government, and other stakeholders on prioritizing partnerships, preparedness planning, community participation, and leadership as essential components of creating and maintaining resilience. “One Community at a Time” framework offers practical guidance for community-based organizations, local government, and other stakeholders to prioritize partnerships, preparedness planning, community participation, and leadership as essential components of creating and sustaining resilience.
... For this reason, there is growing interest in environmental governance and ecosystem governance [1,2]. Environmental crises are framed as exogenous changes which require 'disaster risk reduction' or 'disaster management' in order to build resilience through the reduction of uncertainty and the application of engineering approaches [3,4]. The need for reducing the risk of disasters is also reflected upon the second priority of the global strategy "Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Governance 2015-20130" which describes disaster risk governance as the way in which different actors (authorities, society, public servants, media, private sector) coordinate in order to reduce or manage risks related to disasters and the climate. ...
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Citation: Karasmanaki, E.; Mallinis, G.; Mitsopoulos, I.; Karteris, A.; Chrysafis, I.; Bakaloudis, D.; Kokkoris, I.P.; Maris, F.; Arianoutsou, M.; Goldammer, J.G.; et al. Proposing a Governance Model for Environmental Crises. Land 2023, 12, 597. https://doi. Abstract: During August 2021, a wildfire outbreak in Evia, Greece's second largest island, resulted in a major environmental and economic crisis. Apart from biodiversity and habitat loss, the disaster triggered a financial crisis because it wiped out wood-productive forests and outdoor areas that attract visitors. This crisis highlighted the need for a new governance model in order to respond to environmental crises more effectively. The aim of this study was to investigate the acceptance and attitudes of relevant stakeholders towards establishing a Hub-a proposed governance model responsible for monitoring and restoring the natural capital and biodiversity after environmental crises. Results based on quantitative data collected via questionnaires showed that most respondents were positive to the Hub and perceived that its main functions should be to recommend measures after environmental crises and to facilitate cooperation among involved stakeholders. Moreover, results pointed to preferred funding sources, stakeholder groups that should participate in the Hub and key performance indicators (KPIs) for monitoring Hub's performance. The applied methodology could guide the establishment of governance models both in the study area and other countries facing environmental crises.
... Then, Resilience has developed as a significant topic in the travel industry [8], [9] to see how the travel industry framework can be stronger resilience to startle. And furthermore, according to [10] about utilizing social capital, we contend that network and resources accessible to firms through their associations with others is likewise a basic element of resilience. Finally, social capital encourages the recuperation of networks and survivors, with quicker recuperation being connected to more grounded social capital. ...
... Network structures have particularly been identified as important in resilience building because of their capacity to mobilise resources and avail information that would otherwise not be available at individual level (Gotham and Powers, 2015). Indicator outcomes of network structures including availability of formal and informal social safety nets, access to communal natural resources in particular water and pasture as well as bee hives, quarries, gums and resins, shrubs for traditional medicines and for fire and charcoal were identified in this study. ...
... Network structures have particularly been identified as important in resilience building because of their capacity to mobilise resources and avail information that would otherwise not be available at individual level (Gotham and Powers, 2015). Indicator outcomes of network structures including availability of formal and informal social safety nets, access to communal natural resources in particular water and pasture as well as bee hives, quarries, gums and resins, shrubs for traditional medicines and for fire and charcoal were identified in this study. ...
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Adaptation framing remains one of the major challenges to achieving greater implementation of adaptation initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Using an integrated analytical framework that frames adaptation indicators into three dimensions; adaptive, absorptive and transformative capacities, we analysed the adaptation diversity in Karamoja sub-region, Uganda. We found a strong perception of the existence of climate variability and change manifested through the occurrence of droughts, floods, hailstorms, late onset and early rainfall onset. Absorptive capacity revealed varied status of asset ownership, custodianships, and access to these assets, presence of informal social safety nets, and social cohesion. Adaptive capacity revealed the presence of a diversity of livelihood sources, livelihood assets and associated income, but its human capital indicator revealed considerably high illiteracy levels among respondents. Meanwhile, transformative capacity revealed existence of network structures, governance and institutions, facilitated access to early warning information on pests, diseases and rainfall onset. Traditional institutions and the justice system played a key role in conflict resolution, mediation and negotiation for kraals establishment, grazing, and watering rights. We conclude that pastoral communities in Karamoja have a high inclination to maintenance of stability while their flexibility and ability to change decreases with the intensity of change pro-rata.
... Resilience building and disaster recovery are facilitated through a system of processes that exist to buffer the impact of disasters, or improve circumstances during or afterwards, including short-term responses and long-term planning [9,10]. While there is no cross-disciplinary consensus on what resilience means [11], the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [12] defines resilience as the ability of a social system to absorb disturbances while retaining the same basic structure and ways of functioning, the capacity for self-organisation and the capacity to adapt to stress and change. Drawing on the SPHERE Handbook for humanitarian response (2018), the International Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) Strategic Framework 2018-2023 (2018) [114] and the INEE Minimum Standards in Education [13], we propose an integrated approach to DRR and resilience-building through schools. ...
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This paper reviews the key disaster risk management (DRM) frameworks used for protecting children's wellbeing in disaster settings and identifies a lack of consideration for (1) psychosocial and (2) water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) needs. It also demonstrates that these two domains are meaningfully linked, as access to adequate WASH provision may protect psychosocial wellbeing and promote community resilience. As support in both domains is vitally important to children's wellbeing, these gaps warrant immediate attention. Schools are uniquely situated to support these needs as part of disaster risk management and resilience building. Therefore, we consider the ASEAN Common Framework for Comprehensive School Safety (ACFCSS), which is an adaptation of the Comprehensive School Safety Framework (CSS) implemented in schools across the ASEAN region. While the CSS explicitly considers WASH, it only briefly considers psychosocial support; the ACFCCS lacks consideration of both domains. We argue revisions of the ACFCSS should prioritise the inclusion of psychosocial and WASH support and consider the role of schools beyond their capacity as educational institutions. We present an adaptation of ACFCSS with an additional framework pillar to guide this revision. Overall, we advocate for an integrated approach to DRM in schools based on an evidence-based, interdisciplinary perspective. We provide a series of evidence-based recommendations for DRM frameworks to consider, especially for those that intend to safeguard the wellbeing of children.
... Organizing equitable participation in process is difficult, as those with money and education are far more likely to participate than those without (Chandrasekhar et al., 2014;Glavovic, 2008). This inequity in participation is dramatized further in post-disaster situations, as disasters tend to exacerbate previous inequalities (see Pelling, 2003;Gotham & Powers, 2015;Mosby, this volume, Chap. 13). ...
Chapter
Place attachment, or the affective bond between people and place (Altman & Low, Place attachment. Springer, New York, 1992), is a significant component of individual and community health and well-being (Marshall & Bishop, The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social and Community Studies 9:1–10, 2015). Place loss that comes in the wake of a disaster can be traumatizing, grief-inducing, and identity-threatening, due to the sudden and often violent nature of disasters. In this chapter, we investigate the concept of place attachment and the trauma of place loss as well as the crucial role of urban planning in the post-disaster rebuilding and recovery of place and the restoration of individual and community well-being. We examine the transformative potential of planning to strengthen individual and community capacity to overcome loss and recover from disasters and the key challenges planners face in the post-disaster planning process. Foremost among these challenges is the development and implementation of a meaningful public engagement process. We conclude with a brief discussion on how to rebuild after disaster to expand opportunities and restore well-being for all residents of disaster-impacted communities.
... To this end, disaster researchers are particularly interested in identifying risk factors related to an affected individual's increased likelihood of developing mental health problems following natural disasters. One such variable that has received attention in the theoretical literature is social capital (Aldrich, 2015;Gotham & Powers, 2015;Hishida & Shaw, 2014). ...
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Objective: Social capital, or the resources that an individual can draw on through his or her social networks and the value ascribed to these resources by the individual, has been hypothesized to be an important factor in the development of mental health problems following a natural disaster. Nevertheless, little research has been conducted in this area. The present study aimed to evaluate the potential buffering effect of the 2 types of social capital—bonding and bridging social capital—on the association between severity of trauma exposure and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in a large sample of earthquake survivors in Iran. Method: Participants were 600 adults who survived the Azarbaijan earthquake in Iran. Participants were selected using a multistage sampling method. PTSD symptoms were reported in 37% of the participants, 95% CI [34%, 41%]. Results: Consistent with prior research, significant differences were found between areas that were highly affected and areas that were less affected by the disaster. Although both bonding and bridging social capitals were negatively related to PTSD symptoms, this buffering effect against PTSD symptoms was about 2 times as large for bridging capital than for bonding social capital. Conclusion: While bridging and bonding social capital are both significant protective factors for mental health outcomes following natural disasters, bridging social capital may be more important. Future directions for this area of research are discussed, as are policy implications for disaster preparedness and postdisaster interventions.
... B. Rubin, Saperstein, & Berbee, 1985;Smith & Wenger, 2007;Wilson, 2009). This research has highlighted characteristics important to both individual and community recovery, such as social capital and trust (Aldrich & Meyer, 2015;Aldrich & Ono, 2016;Aldrich, Page, & Paul, 2016;Aldrich & Smith, 2015;Gotham & Powers, 2015;Nakagawa & Shaw, 2004). However, our understanding of community-level characteristics that lead to successful recovery, particularly in the aftermath of disasters, is fairly nascent (National Research Council, 2006;O'Donovan, 2015;C. ...
Article
Natural disasters may be windows of opportunity for policy change and learning by local governments, which are the entities primarily responsible for the recovery and rebuilding process after a disaster strikes in the United States. During disaster recovery, local governments are faced with myriad policy challenges, from technical issues concerning the repair and replacement of infrastructure to broader substantive questions of reducing vulnerability to future hazards. Their actions are constrained by federal and state policies related to disaster recovery, and yet they must make their own decisions regarding disaster recovery finance within those constraints. These decisions may then influence a local government's long-term fiscal planning, such as their target level of budget reserves, borrowing, categories of spending, and mechanisms to generate revenue. To assess how local governments respond to and learn from fiscal constraints during disaster recovery, we analyze flood recovery in seven Colorado communities in the three counties most impacted by extreme flooding in 2013. Data from in-depth interviews with local finance personnel and other administrators, budgets, and public documents are used to analyze recovery decisions and postdisaster fiscal policy learning. While most local governments drew instrumental lessons from the disaster experience, such as how to better manage grant reimbursement processes, some also drew broader lessons that may contribute to achieving longer term community resilience, fiscal stability, and disaster preparedness.
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Rural education researchers have long been interested in the impact of increasing urbanization, with its attendant shifts in policy, culture, and capital mobility, on rural people and communities, but their findings have existed largely to the side of “mainstream” research examining urban and suburban populations. With the publication in 2011 of Critical Rural Theory: Structure, Space, Culture , scholars acquired a new theoretical tool for inquiring into processes of place‐making, identity formation, curricular design, and policy implementation. This article establishes key elements of the theory as they have been applied in both K‐12 and higher education research, giving attention to current gaps in the literature as well as future directions for theoretical elaboration. Essential areas of focus include critical rural theory's applications in K‐12 curricula and policy studies as well as research on community capitals, college transitions, and intersectional identity in higher education contexts.
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Artikel hendak menjelaskan tentang kearifan lokal Pimpinan Ranting Muhammadiyah (PRM) dalam merespon gagasan desa tangguh bencana sebagai modal sosial penting dalam kesiapsiagaan menghadapi bencana. Metode yang dipergunakan dalam pengabdian adalah focus group discussion dan simulasi permainan untuk mengeksplorasi gagasan penting terkait dengan kearifan lokal dusun Kadirojo Palpabang Bantul dalam issue kebencanaan seperti Mitigasi, Evakuasi, Rehabilitasi dan Rekonstruksi. Hasil pengabdian menunjukan bahwa kearifan lokal berbasis mitigasi dan evakuasi sudah terlembaga dengan baik dengan menempatkan masjid sebagai pilar utama pengelolaan situasi kebencanaan. Abstract The article explains the local wisdom of the Ranting Muhammadiyah Leader in responding to the idea of a disaster-resilience village as an important social capital in disaster preparedness. The method used in devotion is focus group discussion and game simulation to explore important ideas related to the local wisdom of the Kadirojo Palpabang Bantul in planning issues such as mitigation, evacuation, rehabilitation and reconstruction. The results of devotion show that local wisdom based on mitigation and evacuation has been well-established by placing the mosque as the main pillar of the disaster management. salah satu desa yang mengalami kerusakan yang massif pada gempa bumi, 27 Mei 2006 yang berkekuatan 5,9 richter. Gempa bumi tersebut menyebabkan lebih dari 80% bangunan privat dan publik mengalami kerusakan parah, menelan korban jiwa meninggal dunia sampai 40 orang, dan ratusan di antaranya mengalami luka berat dan ringan yang memerlukan perawatan di rumah sakit Data ini diperkuat dengan studi survey yang dilakukan oleh Koseki (et.al) yang menunjukan parahnya dampak kerusakan sebagai akibat kompleksnya implikasi dari kekuatan gempa bumi berupa terjadi tanah longsor, liquifasi, patahnya sejumlah jembatan penghubung antar wilayah sehingga berakibat terisolasinya sejumlah wilayah (Koseki et al., 2007). Parahnya dampak gempa bumi di Desa Palbapang Bantul, tidak terlepas dari posisi geologis Desa Palbapang, jarak antara pusat gempa ke Desa Palbapang hanya berjarak 4 km dari episentrum gempa, dengan kedalaman gempa 10 km. Kondisi ini menyebabkan sejumlah fasilitas publik dan privat mengalami kerusakan yang parah. Seperti yang ditunjukan dalam gambar sesar gempa, daerah Desa Palbapang berada dalam garis merah sesar yang kemudian mengalami hentakan gempa susulan secara terus menerus. Banyak rumah penduduk yang sebelumnya belum mengalami rusak parak pada waktu gempa utama, kemudian mengalami kerusakan sedang dan akhirnya menjadi rusak berat (Raharja et al., 2016).
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Cities are exposed to a multitude of risks, which disproportionately affect poor and vulnerable communities. Vulnerability assessments are a method to map exposure and sensitivity to climate-induced hazards in different areas and communities in a city, while measuring individuals’ capacities to withstand, respond to, and recover from risks. However, most vulnerability assessments are conducted at city-level and fail to capture differential adaptive capacities in different neighbourhoods in a city. The UCRA helps cities develop vulnerability and resilience assessments at the local level and incorporate the findings into wider city and sub-city disaster management and resilience plans. It provides a snapshot of resilience capacities, including social and political networks, collective preparedness mechanisms, and access to economic resources. Each assessment is based partly on focus group discussions, which reveal a local community’s willingness to engage in collective resilience actions and integrate them into disaster preparedness and planning.KeywordsCommunity capacitiesLocally-led actionDifferential vulnerabilitiesGeospatial risk assessmentsCommunity indicators
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‘Resilience’ has emerged to become a notion that imbues academic research and policy discourse. But, the term's prolificacy is matched neither by certainty regarding its definition nor by agreement regarding its application through policy and practice. Like ‘sustainability’ or ‘progress’ the concept, at least from a superficial perspective, is one that is rather agreeable and ‘fuzzy’ and difficult to contest. It seems counter-intuitive to argue that we should not become more resilient, particularly in the face of economic, environmental and social shocks or stresses that can prove to be deeply disruptive—even devastating—to everyday life.
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This paper provides a theoretical and political critique of how the concept of resilience has been applied to places. It is based upon three main points. First, the ecological concept of resilience is conservative when applied to social relations. Second, resilience is externally-defined by state agencies and expert knowledge. Third, a concern with the resilience of places is misplaced in terms of spatial scale, since the processes which shape resilience operate primary at the scale of capitalist social relations. In place of resilience, we offer the concept of resourcefulness as an alternative approach for community groups to foster.
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The reality of supporting community-based urban disaster risk reduction is daunting. This paper provides a cross-cultural analysis of the experiences of Oxfam GB in supporting urban community-based disaster risk reduction in Haiti, Guyana and the Dominican Republic. The paper focuses on the efforts of Oxfam GB and its local partners to overcome the determining influence of local governance on who benefits from interventions, and the longevity of positive outcomes. The most successful projects built on strong pre-existing partnerships with buy-in from local and municipal government, promoted longevity in physical and social infrastructure through dual use investments that had an everyday as well as a disaster risk reduction purpose, and integrated technological and lay focus exercises to generate local participation as well as provide baselines for project planning. Overall, however, disaster risk reduction was constrained by a lack of vision and funding constraints, which prevented root causes in the wider urban and regional environment or political economy to be tackled.
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Biological diversity appears to enhance the resilience of desirable ecosystem states, which is required to secure the production of essential ecosystem services. The diversity of responses to environmental change among species contributing to the same ecosystem function, which we call response diversity, is critical to resilience. Response diversity is particularly important for ecosystem renewal and reorganization following change. Here we present examples of response diversity from both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and across temporal and spatial scales. Response diversity provides adaptive capacity in a world of complex systems, uncertainty, and human-dominated environments. We should pay special attention to response diversity when planning ecosystem management and restoration, since it may contribute considerably to the resilience of desired ecosystem states against disturbance, mismanagement, and degradation.
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As I was sitting down to write the first of three annual progress reports on urban polit-ical ecology, the lights went out. At 4:11 p.m. on August 14, 2003 a cascading power failure that oscillated through the northeastern states of the U.S. and the Canadian prov-ince of Ontario affected the electrified everydayness 3 of 50 million people and continued to haunt many country and city folk in this huge area with "rolling blackouts" in the days after. When the news of the vastness of the event reached me at our home in Toronto through my transistor radio, I began to assess the situation we all found ourselves in. Having one child in day care (fortunately just a bike ride away), a teenager who-knows-where, and a partner 150 kilometers south of Toronto on her commute home from work (with an empty gas tank), I immediately understood the precariousness of the ecologies of our daily lives. What added to the quick computation was the awareness that I had a routine check-up in a hospital scheduled for the following day that involved a big electronic machine. The blackout, semicontinental though it was, added insult to injury in a city that had previously been rocked by an unusually hard winter, a medically, psycho-logically and economically devastating SARS epidemic, and an emergent West-Nile virus scare. Especially the SARS episode, which killed 44 people in Toronto alone, had highlighted practically overnight that we were always only one species-boundary (from the mysterious civet cat in this case), one rural-urban trip (from China's Guangdong prov-ince to Hong Kong), and one transcontinental flight (from Hong Kong to Toronto) away from the kind of nature that most modern commentators on urban life had irretrievably considered part of the past. These kinds of crises (in the fields of energy provision, health, water, etc.), perhaps more so than the daily replenished food bays in our supermarkets and endless water fountains that spring from our showerheads, highlight momentarily that our urban lives depend most fundamentally on global ecologies and the political economies that uphold them. Processes of urban-nature relationships have been rescaled 3 And let us not forget "everynightness:" As Amin and Thrift (2002) correctly point out, the night is a specific urban ecology that needs special attention.
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Based on the false promise of widespread prosperity, communities across the U.S. have embraced all brands of economic development at all costs. In Louisiana, that meant development interests turning wetlands into shipping lanes. By replacing a natural buffer against storm surges with a 75-mile long, obsolete canal that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, they guided the hurricane into the heart of New Orleans and adjacent communities. The authors reveal why, despite their geographic differences, California and Missouri are building-quite literally-toward similar destruction. © 2009 Willliam R. Freudenburg, Robert B. Gramling, Shirley B. Laska, and Kai T. Erikson. All rights reserved.
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Ecological resilience, adaptive cycles, and panarchy are all concepts that have been developed to explain abrupt and often surprising changes in complex socio-ecological systems that are prone to disturbances. These types of changes involve qualitative and quantitative alterations in systems' structures and processes. This paper uses the concepts of ecological resilience, adaptive cycles, and panarchies to compare ecological and human community systems. At least five important findings emerge from this comparison. 1) Both systems demonstrate the multiple meanings of resilience-both in terms of recovery time from disturbances and the capacity to absorb them. 2) Both systems recognize the role of diversity in contributing to resilience. 3) The comparison highlights the role of different forms of capital and 4) the importance of cross-scale interactions. 5) The comparison reveals the need for experimentation and learning to build adaptive capacities. All of these ideas have broad implications for attempting to manage complex systems with human and ecological components in the face of recurring natural disasters.
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The hurricane protection systems that failed New Orleans when Katrina roared on shore in 2005 were the product of four decades of engineering hubris, excruciating delays, and social conflict. In Perilous Place, Powerful Storms, Craig E. Colten traces the protracted process of erecting massive structures designed to fend off tropical storms and examines how human actions and inactions left the system incomplete on the eve of its greatest challenge.Hurricane Betsy in 1965 provided the impetus for Congress to approve unprecedented hurricane protection for the New Orleans area. Army Engineers swiftly outlined a monumental barrier network that would not only safeguard the city at the time but also provide for substantial growth. Scheduled for completion in 1978, the project encountered a host of frustrating delays. From newly imposed environmental requirements to complex construction challenges, to funding battles, to disputes over proper structures, the buffer envisioned for southeast Louisiana remained incomplete forty years later as Hurricane Katrina bore down on the city.As Colten reveals, the very remedies intended to shield the city ultimately contributed immensely to the residents' vulnerability by encouraging sprawl into flood-prone territory that was already sinking within the ring of levees. Perilous Place, Powerful Storms illuminates the political, social, and engineering lessons of those who built a hurricane protection system that failed and serves as a warning for those guiding the recovery of post-Katrina New Orleans and Louisiana. © 2009 by University Press of Mississippi. All Rights Reserved.
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Global environmental change is occurring at a rate faster than humans have ever experienced. Climate change and the loss of ecosystem services are the two main global environmental crises facing us today. As a result, there is a need for better understanding of the specific and general resilience of networked ecosystems, cities, organisations and institutions to cope with change. In this book, an international team of experts provide cutting-edge insights into building the resilience and adaptive governance of complex social-ecological systems. Through a set of case studies, it focuses on the social science dimension of ecosystem management in the context of global change, in a move to bridge existing gaps between resilience, sustainability and social science. Using empirical examples ranging from local to global levels, views from a variety of disciplines are integrated to provide an essential resource for scholars, policy-makers and students, seeking innovative approaches to governance.
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Urban neighborhoods form the basic functional unit of municipalities. Socioeconomically, they consist of social networks and interlocking layers of social networks. Old, stable neighborhoods are blessed with large social networks and dense interlocking layers. Both social control and social support depend on these complex structures of tight and loose ties. Public health and public order depend on these structures. They are the basis of resilience of both the neighborhood itself and of the municipality that is composed of neighborhoods. In New York City in the 1970s and later, domain shift occurred because of the disruption of the socioeconomic structure by the massive destruction of low-rental housing. A combined epidemic of building fires and landlord abandonment of buildings leveled a huge percentage of housing in poor neighborhoods and forced mass migration between neighborhoods. Social relationships that had existed between families and individuals for decades were destroyed. Community efficacy also greatly diminished. Drug use, violent crime, tuberculosis, and low-weight births were among the many public health and public order problems that soared in incidence consequent to the unraveling of the communities. These problems spilled out into the metropolitan region of dependent suburban counties. The ability of a municipality and its dependent suburban counties to weather a disaster such as an avian flu pandemic depends on the size of social networks in its neighborhoods and on the interconnection between the social networks. Diversity such as gained by social and economic integration influences the strength of the loose ties between social networks, Poor neighborhoods with extreme resilience conferred by a dense fabric of social networks must also maintain connections with mainstream political structure or they will fail to react to both good and bad impacts and communications.
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Climate change is one of the most challenging issues of our time. As key sites in the production and management of emissions of greenhouse gases, cities will be crucial for the implementation of international agreements and national policies on climate change. This book provides a critical analysis of the role of cities in addressing climate change and the prospects for urban sustainability. Cities and Climate Change is the first in-depth analysis of the role of cities in addressing climate change. The book argues that key challenges concerning the resources and powers of local government, as well as conflicts between local goals for economic development and climate change mitigation, have restricted the level of local action on climate change. These findings have significant implications for the prospects of mitigating climate change and achieving urban sustainability. This book provides a valuable interdisciplinary analysis of these issues, and will appeal to students and researchers interested in sustainability at local and global scales. © 2003 Harriet Bulkeley and Michele M. Betsill. All rights reserved.
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The changing demographic landscape of the United States calls for a reassessment of the societal impacts and consequences of so-called "natural" and technological disasters. An increasing trend towards greater demographic and socio-economic diversity (in part due to high rates of international immigration), combined with mounting disaster losses, have brought about a more serious focus among scholars on how changing population patterns shape the vulnerability and resiliency of social systems. Recent disasters, such as the Indian Ocean Tsunami (2004) and Hurricane Katrina (2005), point to the differential impacts of disasters on certain communities, particularly those that do not have the necessary resources to cope with and recover from such events. This paper interprets these impacts within the context of economic, cultural, and social capital, as well as broader human ecological forces. The paper also makes important contributions to the social science disaster research literature by examining population growth, composition, and distribution in the context of disaster risk and vulnerability. Population dynamics (e.g., population growth, migration, and urbanization) are perhaps one of the most important factors that have increased our exposure to disasters and have contributed to the devastating impacts of these events, as the case of Hurricane Katrina illustrates. Nevertheless, the scientific literature exploring these issues is quite limited. We argue that if we fail to acknowledge and act on the mounting evidence regarding population composition, migration, inequality, and disaster vulnerability, we will continue to experience disasters with greater regularity and intensity.
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The 1977 Sorokin Award winning story of Buffalo Creek in the aftermath of a devastating flood. On February 26, 1972, 132-million gallons of debris-filled muddy water burst through a makeshift mining-company dam and roared through Buffalo Creek, a narrow mountain hollow in West Virginia. Following the flood, survivors from a previously tightly knit community were crowded into trailer homes with no concern for former neighborhoods. The result was a collective trauma that lasted longer than the individual traumas caused by the original disaster. Making extensive use of the words of the people themselves, Erikson details the conflicting tensions of mountain life in general the tensions between individualism and dependency, self-assertion and resignation, self-centeredness and group orientation and examines the loss of connection, disorientation, declining morality, rise in crime, rise in out-migration, etc., that resulted from the sudden loss of neighborhood."
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Recent years have witnessed the growth of an interdisciplinary literature that seeks to identify the indicators, measures, and processes of social and ecological resilience. In ecology, resilience refers to "the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize and yet persist in a similar state" (Gunderson, et al. 2006). In Holling's (1973) original and influential thesis, ecological resilience is akin to "stability behavior" and refers to an ecosystem's return to equilibrium after a disturbance. Since the 1980s, scholars have applied the concept of resilience to human systems to explain how both humans and urban ecosystems respond to traumatic events, and what factors explain the pace, trajectory, and nature of recovery (for an overview, see Brand and Jax 2007). An integrative component of ecological systems and human systems, practiced by the Resilience Alliance through their journal Ecology and Society, suggests that "adaptive capacity" is an essential characteristic of resilient urban ecosystems (Dietz et al. 2003). In this conception, resilience does not just mean adjustment, recovery, and return to a pre-disturbance state. Rather, resilience implies the capacity for renewal, regeneration, and re-organization when faced with disturbances (Folke 2006; Berkes et al. 2003, 13; Olsson et al. 2004). Resilient systems are those that are able to adapt to uncertainty and surprise, absorb recurrent disturbances to retain essential structures and processes, and build capacity for learning, improve-ment, and advancement over pre-disturbance conditions (Adger, et al. 2005; Folke 2006; Redman 2005; Pickett, Cadenasso, and Grove 2004, 373). Overall, resilience is not an inherent or static property of systems but varies by scale, organizational units, place, and time. This paper provides a critical review of urban scholarship on the relationship between social-ecological diversity and resilience. We identify empirical and theoretical gaps in the urban literature, suggest areas for future research, and develop a research agenda to examine and evaluate the social, institutional, and policy roots of urban ecosystem resilience. We develop the concept of transformative resilience as a heuristic device to examine how different urban ecosystems can adapt, adjust, renew, and transform in response to trauma. Explaining variation in post-trauma urban ecosystem resilience holds tremendous potential for uncovering the causal mechanisms and drivers of political, economic, and social change with policy implications for sustainable development.
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Five years after Katrina’s devastation, almost 90 per cent of New Orleans metropolitan population has returned. Recovery patterns, however, remain highly uneven. This paper examines the relationship between pre-existing demographic and housing conditions, damage from Hurricane Katrina, access to federal individual and housing assistance, and repopulation rates in the New Orleans metropolitan area. Findings shed light on the respective roles of pre-existing conditions, damage and assistance in shaping long-term recovery outcomes. In the case of Katrina, areas that have experienced the lowest repopulation rates had high levels of damage and received disproportionately low individual and housing assistance relative to damage. These areas are characterised by higher concentrations of minorities, low-income households and rental units than areas that experienced higher repopulation rates. Findings also highlight structural causes for the unevenness of recovery outcomes. The paper concludes with suggestions for a more effective and sustainable post-disaster assistance and recovery approach.
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This paper examines the implementation of post-disaster US federal assistance programmes for residential reconstruction and investigates the relationship between socio-demographic characteristics of places and access to residential assistance following the Northridge earthquake that hit Los Angeles in 1994. The paper also examines the effects of the distribution of assistance on long-term recovery outcomes. Findings suggest that areas with high levels of socially marginalised populations were at a disadvantage in accessing federal residential assistance. Findings also show that the long-term effects of the earthquake differed depending on levels of assistance relative to damage. Areas that received less assistance experienced losses in population and housing units. These findings indicate that post-disaster recovery programmes in the US do not adequately address the wide range of housing needs that emerge in the case of a major disaster in a large metropolitan area. Implications for post-disaster planning as well as for planning under everyday conditions are discussed.
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Each year, natural disasters threaten the strength and stability of communities worldwide. Yet responses to the challenges of recovery vary greatly and in ways that aren't always explained by the magnitude of the catastrophe or the amount of aid provided by national governments or the international community. The difference between resilience and disrepair, Daniel P. Aldrich shows, lies in the depth of communities' social capital. "Building Resilience" highlights the critical role of social capital in the ability of a community to withstand disaster and rebuild the infrastructure and ties that are at the foundation of any community. Aldrich examines the post-disaster responses of four distinct communities - Tokyo following the 1923 earthquake, Kobe after the 1995 earthquake, Tamil Nadu after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and New Orleans post-Katrina - and finds that those with robust social networks were better able to coordinate recovery. In addition to quickly disseminating information and assistance, communities with an abundance of social capital were able to minimize the migration of people and resources out of the area. With governments increasingly overstretched and natural disasters likely to increase in frequency and intensity, an understanding of what contributes to efficient reconstruction is more important than ever. "Building Resilience" underscores a critical component of an effective response.
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The focus of this article is planning for resiliency in the aftermath of a catastrophe. First, the authors offer their conception of planning for resiliency as a goal for recovering communities, and the benefits of planning in efforts to create more resilient places. Next, they discuss major issues associated with planning for postdisaster recovery, including barriers posed by federal and state governments to planning for resiliency, the promise and risks of compact urban form models for guiding rebuilding, and the failure to involve citizens in planning for disasters. Finally, they discuss lessons from prior research that address these issues and policy recommendations that foster predisaster recovery planning for resilient communities.
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Change is a constant force, in nature and in society. Research suggests that resilience pertains to the ability of a system to sustain itself through change via adaptation and occasional transformation. This article is based on the premises that communities can develop resilience by actively building and engaging the capacity to thrive in an environment characterized by change, and that community resilience is an important indicator of social sustainability. Community resilience, as defined herein, is the existence, development, and engagement of community resources by community members to thrive in an environment characterized by change, uncertainty, unpredictability, and surprise. The U.S. Roundtable on Sustainable Forests commissioned a research project to develop a theoretically and empirically based definition of community resilience as well as an associated measurement instrument. In this article, the research is presented, the emergent definition and dimensions of community resilience are posited, and the Community Resilience Self Assessment is introduced.
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This article contributes to our understanding of community resilience. Community resilience is the ability of a community to cope and adjust to stresses caused by social, political, and environmental change and to engage community resources to overcome adversity and take advantage of opportunities in response to change. Through an analysis of local responses to multiple challenges, six dimensions of community resilience were found in one village in northern Norway. These dimensions; community resources, community networks, institutions and services, people–place connections, active agents, and learning; are activated in processes and activities in the village to respond to current challenges. Although this corroborates findings from other community resilience research, this research suggests that community resilience is both complex and dynamic over time. Although communities may consider themselves resilient to today’s challenges, the rate and magnitude of expected systemic global changes, especially climate change, means that future resilience cannot be taken for granted. This work concludes that there is a risk that community resilience may be an illusion, leading to complacency about the need for adaption to multiple factors of change. Hence, the ability of communities to actively engage in reflexive learning processes is of importance for both adaptation and future resilience. http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol17/iss4/art46/
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This article examines the process of post-disaster recovery and rebuilding in New York City since 9/11 and in New Orleans since the Hurricane Katrina disaster (8/29). As destabilizing events, 9/11 and 8/29 forced a rethinking of the major categories, concepts and theories that long dominated disaster research. We analyze the form, trajectory and problems of reconstruction in the two cities with special emphasis on the implementation of the Community Development Block Grant program, the Liberty Zone and the Gulf Opportunity Zone, and tax-exempt private activity bonds to finance and promote reinvestment. Drawing on a variety of data sources, we show that New York and New Orleans have become important laboratories for entrepreneurial city and state governments seeking to use post-disaster rebuilding as an opportunity to push through far-reaching neoliberal policy reforms. The emphasis on using market-centered approaches for urban recovery and rebuilding in New York and New Orleans should be seen not as coherent or sustainable responses to urban disaster but rather as deeply contradictory restructuring strategies that are intensifying the problems they seek to remedy.
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Despite substantial work in a variety of disciplines, substantive areas, and geographical contexts, social memory studies is a nonparadigmatic, transdisciplinary, centerless enterprise. To remedy this relative disorganization, we (re-)construct out of the diversity of work addressing social memory a useful tradition, range of working definitions, and basis for future work. We trace lineages of the enterprise, review basic definitional disputes, outline a historical approach, and review sociological theories concerning the statics and dynamics of social memory.
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Vulnerability to extreme events is shaped by both physical and social factors, and Hurricane Katrina brutally exposed that fact in New Orleans. Historically, low-income Irish and Italian populations suffered when floods washed over the Crescent City. Modifications in the structural defenses to floods and shifting demographics since 1950 altered the geography of vulnerability. In recent years, both blacks and whites have occupied below-sea-level sites, exposing both to flood risks, although the racial composition of the city has undergone a near reversal. Additionally, low-income residents, found disproportionately within the African American population, suffered dual vulnerability. Not only did many live in low-lying areas but evacuation plans relied on private automobiles that left many poor residents to endure the impact of the hurricane-induced flooding.
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The past can be characterized by periods of changing and stable relationships between human groups and their environment. In this article, I argue that use of “resilience theory” as a conceptual framework will assist archaeologists in interpreting the past in ways that are interesting and potentially relevant to contemporary issues. Many of the authors in this “In Focus” section primarily concentrate on the relationships associated with patterns of human extraction of resources and the impacts of those human activities on the continuing condition of the ecosystem. These processes are, of course, embedded in a complex web of relationships that are based on multiple interactions of underlying patterns and processes of both the ecological and social domains. In this article, I introduce a resilience theory perspective to argue that these transformations were characterized by very different reorganizations of the socioecological landscape and were the product of a variety of factors that operated at different scales of geography, time, and social organization.
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Urban designers, ecologists, and social scientists have called for closer links among their disciplines. We examine a promising new tool for promoting this linkage—the metaphor of "cities of resilience." To put this tool to best use, we indicate how metaphor fits with other conceptual tools in science. We then present the two opposing definitions of resilience from ecology, and give reasons why one is more appropriate for linking with design. Additional specific tools and insights that are emerging from, or being increasingly used in, ecology can further support the linkage with urban design. These include recognizing the role of spatial heterogeneity in both ecological and social functioning of urban areas, the integrating power of watersheds, social and ecological patch dynamics of cities, the utility of spatial mosaic models to capture function, the use of an integrated "human ecosystem" modeling framework, and the consequent perspective of metropolitan areas as integrated ecological-social systems. Three additional tools are related to the adaptability of people and human institutions. First is the recognition of a "learning loop" in metropolitan ecosystems in which people respond to and affect ecological change, the use of urban design as experiments whose ecological and social outcomes can be measured, and finally the potency of a dialog between professionals and citizens, communities, and institutions, to support both research and design. The metaphor of resilience, and its technical specifications, draw these diverse strands for linking ecology and planning together.
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Human agency is considered a key factor in determining how individuals and society respond to environmental change. This article synthesizes knowledge on agency, capacity, and resilience across human development, well-being, and disasters literature to provide insights to support more integrated and human-centered approaches to understanding environmental change. It draws out the key areas of agreement across these diverse fields and identifies the main points of contestation and uncertainty. This highlights the need to consider subjective and relational factors in addition to objective measures of capacity and to view these as reflexive and dynamic, as well as differentiated socially and temporally. These findings can help distinguish between coping, adaptation, and transformation as responses to environmental and other stressors.
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The paper draws on the concept of regional resilience to examine the impact of the 2008–2010 downturn across regions in Europe. It finds that correlations between resilience and regional strength/fragility varied between countries in both 2009 and 2010, that resilience was weaker in manufacturing regions in 2009 but not 2010 and that the resilience of regions with high rates of construction employment was mainly low in regions affected by asset bubbles. Fiscal stimulus and tightening packages in 2008–2012 are shown to have regional dimensions in many countries but their regional impact varies, depending on political decisions and existing institutional frameworks.