What is climate resilience? How can we make climate resilient city a reality? How can a resilient city be measured?
Approaching the problem:
Resilience means the capacity and capability to prevent, resist, manage the issue, and bouncing back after an event.
A steel concrete column is very strong and safe, but a huge impact can brake it. The wind, water and temperature changes slowly erode the concrete and the steel. The whipping willow has lower strength, but it is more resilient. The branches flexibly moving in the wind, water and cold cannot harm the tree. If a branch brakes, the willow grows more scions and replaces it fast. If the stem brakes, new willow trees would grow from the ground and cover the empty area.
I suggest focusing on the functionality instead of providing the same services on the same way. What does the city offer now? Food, shelter, entertainment, job, safety, etc. Are these functions affected by climate change? If the answer is no, the city has low climate risk. If the answer is yes, we could think about the mitigation strategy.
For instance the raising sea level and coastal cities. The location of a city itself is not a function. Building dams and pumps is not sustainable. So, moving higher elevation or planning floating cities can be a solution.
I think to elaborate a methodology - framework- to assess the climate risks and develop proper responses would be beneficial.
Dear Robert,
Thank you for your insightful contribution.
Orimoloye
Some thoughts on resilience, all free to download with the last two being about cities:
(a) https://www.acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/866
(b) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11069-016-2294-0
(c) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13753-015-0038-5
(d) http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0309132513518834
(e) http://www.ilankelman.org/articles1/kelman2008udp.pdf
(f) http://www.az.itu.edu.tr/azvol11no1web/05-WeichselgartnerKelman-1101.pdf
@ Robert Istvan Radics ...Very nice explanation of the concepts. I have a follow up question for the point "moving higher elevation or planning floating cities can be a solution..."
Moving to higher elevation will bring newer problems of ecosystem disturbance at elevations and associate impact on Climate Change??
I studied in the masters the relation between two programs on static. Implemented in Brazil, called "Sustainable Cities Program" and another UN on resilient companies, the book "How to make cities more resilient". In addition, you can analyze the strands of each program, proposing an approach to the integration of both programs so that they are known and make it much more effective to treat them separately. Follow his link: Thesis Estudo da Sustentabilidade e Resiliencia Urbana no Contexto ...
Since I'm doing research on "how can you benchmark and report on climate adaptation action in cities", I'm interested in your question. Regarding measuring urban resilience; are you familiar with the ISO 37123 "Sustainable Development in Communities Indicators for Resilient Cities”, published in December 2019? https://www.iso.org/standard/70428.html
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