Urban resilience is, as already mentioned here, a summarizing term for various sub-system resiliences (see attached source). Questions about your research framework come up:

- Which system (area, structure, region) do you want to measure?

- What are the boundaries of this system?

- What elements are at the boundaries and outside?

- Which scales are important for your measures?

- What happens in between the scales you choose?

- From which disciplinary perspective do you look at the system?

So basically: Resilience of what and to what?

Spatial differences (outside of hydrological, geomorphological and topographical issues) can be measured e.g. by the analysis of the morphogenesis of a city or an area, differences in the building codes. It depends on the scale, what you might look at. At small scales you rather look at different building typologies, at higher scales you might have to look at the governance of urban development to measure differences in the processes of "city-production".

It is not difficult to get lost in search for proper definitions of resilience and how to evaluate or measure it. I propose to decide precisely what you want to find out, then its easier to find a way through the resilient forest of research with this approach.

Hi Pu Bo,

Resilience is a multifaceted concept, just like sustainability. Which facet are you interested in? Link discusses regional economic resilience.

http://www.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/cger/Onthenotion.pdf

HI Shian-Loong Bernard Lew, Thanks for your answer. In general, urban resilience involve in economic resilience, ecological resilience, social resilience etc. These  system is how to coordinate work? how to evaluate urban resilience？ depend on a system, such as economic, social, ecological, or a synergy system with above elements? 

Dear Pu Bo,

it would be easier if you can specify the city or region that you would like to measure. There are many indexes indeed, you can choose one that suits the city/region's characteristics or synthesise an index of your own from existing indexes.

Regards

Prananda

I believe that resilience is something really hard to measure. I know that this is not the answer you want to hear, but there are concepts that you cannot simply try to transform in numbers. There are certain dimensions you can measure: for example, a company's resilience, due to portfolio diversification (will respond better to fluctuations and sudden changes). A city resistance regarding natural accidents - you can even measure it by simple observation. In a sense you can even compare cities and learn some lessons. For example, cities that grow around one anchor industry are not very resilient (think of Detroit with GMC), because they are dependent on one single factor/player. One this entity fails, everything tears apart.

What I mean with my answer is: maybe it is better that we turn our attention for Urban Policy and ideas, rather than try to find ways of numbering and calculating everything. As far as I am concerned, I can tell you one thing: the Quality of Life indicators that permanently show up in the media usually rank cities that I would never put in my favorite 10 or 20. Vienna, Melbourne or Vancouver, usually very well ranked, have, for me, not even a close advantage towards New York or Berlin. 

I dont know if you are familiar with the greenest city 2020 programme of Vancouver, in their publications are multiple indexes of which they write about. Also about urban resilience I believe!

Good luck let us know if you find an accurate answer please!

Naut

Disaster professionals have frequently used "hazard maps" to understand the risks that communities face and plan for different aspects of resilience. These hazard maps can be of different scales, meeting various spatial patterns. Also, involving communities, local governments, businesses, etc. to prepare these hazard maps, making them easier to adopt.  

As mentioned, the notion is multi-faceted but involves ability to absorb disturbance or re-organize to retain function, structure and identity (Holling 1973). In practice, it invokes 1 ) intelligence about threats (smart institutions) 2) devolution, debate and systems redundancy rather than singular top-down imposed solutions, informed by 'experts' / central planners  3) re-balance investment portfolios to strengthen social and environmental capital 4) diversify economy and project funding sources.

Might be the main question about the resilience for what? For instance, disaster resilience, social resilience for migration, economic resilience, technological resilience, etc.

Then, the question of the measurement of resilience can be performed in accordance with the relevant criteria.

Article Arising Risks in Urban Settlements: How Can Urban Settlement...

Conference Paper Different Approaches to Disaster Resilience of Urban Settlem...

Urban resilience is, as already mentioned here, a summarizing term for various sub-system resiliences (see attached source). Questions about your research framework come up:

- Which system (area, structure, region) do you want to measure?

- What are the boundaries of this system?

- What elements are at the boundaries and outside?

- Which scales are important for your measures?

- What happens in between the scales you choose?

- From which disciplinary perspective do you look at the system?

So basically: Resilience of what and to what?

Spatial differences (outside of hydrological, geomorphological and topographical issues) can be measured e.g. by the analysis of the morphogenesis of a city or an area, differences in the building codes. It depends on the scale, what you might look at. At small scales you rather look at different building typologies, at higher scales you might have to look at the governance of urban development to measure differences in the processes of "city-production".

It is not difficult to get lost in search for proper definitions of resilience and how to evaluate or measure it. I propose to decide precisely what you want to find out, then its easier to find a way through the resilient forest of research with this approach.

apart from previous comments, take a look at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, focused on social-ecological systems. You will find reports, journals and a large group of researchers working with this interesting and complex topic

http://www.stockholmresilience.org/

That's really a huge question.

I'm not convinced if you can measure resilience as a whole but you can try to focus just on one subject, economic, social, physical or other subject. 

I'm not really sure what you meant in your other question as spatial differences. But using GIS is always something to consider.

Hi dear Pu Po

i think the survey of whole dimension of resilience in city is very difficult. but u should define index in social,economic, institution and physical in the city.  

i think u can used AHP and PROMETHE methods use to rank the resilience of the  city. after that u can using GIS.

I agree with other respondents about the difficulty of defining and measuring 'resilience'. One of the best accounts which I have seen is contained in the 2010 Earthscan book by Melissa Leach and colleagues from the University of Sussex entitled Dynamic Sustainabilities. In it, resilience is modelled in easy-to-understand ways along with other concepts such as 'robustness' which also relate to shock and stress. So, if you are looking for an integrated theoretical account, that is a good place to find it.

Dear Pu Bo,

I do agree with the previous colleagues' comments. I suggest you to read

"Resilience Thinking in Urban Planning" - Editors: Eraydin, Ayda, Tasan-Kok, Tuna (Eds.)

The book provides a new perspective for urban planning field to respond to the future transformations.

Good luck.

Dear David Wadley, thank you for providing useful information.But It's hard for me to find the PDF vision or the hard copy in China. And I will try to buy it. 

Dear Fernando B. Alves, Thank you for  reply. that book have some new perspectives for urban resilience. meanwhile, some books or reports have another perspectives, such as multidisciplinary perspectives on urban resilience, urban regional resilience: how to cities and regions deal with change？,building urban resilience principle, tools, practice, sustainable and resilient communities, etc.

Dear Mohammad eskandari sani. thanks for response. My plan is to use AHP and CNP, then process the results by gis and analyze. You know, to some extent, only one system on urban resilience is deal with easily , but it is is a problem that how to research the synergy on the multiple system. for example, some cities may be a system problem, and other system collapse.

Dear Benjamin Casper, thank you for offering the professional and useful advices. I must more clear my research topic and research methods. 

Dear Pedro A. C. De Oliveira, your reminds me that the the urban culture and poilcy are very important for our life. I have the same feeling with you on this. In China, Most people prefer to modernization of Beijing and Shanghai, but  I more love Chengdu.

Dear Laura Estévez Mauriz. thank you for offering the useful information.

Dear Pedro Guimarães, Thanks. In my view, it is difficult for measuring the whole of  urban resilience, but  it is may be feasible for studying the synergy of the some systems about it. as you said, the gis may be a good tool for it.

Dear Prananda Navitas, many thanks.  Can you recommend some articles and the information?

Dear Naut Loots, Thanks. I have no attention to the information you mentioned.Can you offer some information on the greenest city 2020 programme of Vancouver ? 

Dear Hari Srinivas, thank you for advice. hazard maps is a useflu tool for me on this research.

Dear Simon Huston, Thanks. AS you said, the city is muti-faced. But how to cooperate？ I think it is an interesting topic.

Dear Ebru Alarslan, thank you for offer the related papers.

Resilience depends on the situation and geographical features of any given urban environement

I wish you a successfull research