In cooperation with the Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center of the University of Colorado, CARRI hosted the first Resilience Research Workshop on July 14. The day-long event brought together over 50 scholars and researchers who have worked in areas touching on resilience, published scholarly articles and papers on resilience issues and who are clearly thought leaders in this growing discipline of understanding resilience. Five panels covered a wide range of resilience topics ranging across the social, economic and physical aspects of the subject. A workshop report and several individual summary papers will be available on the CARRI web site very soon.
While it is clear that both the volume and quality of resilience research has grown significantly over the past few years, I came away with an impression that may deserve further thought and discussion.
Academic research is appropriately narrowly focused – some researchers concentrate on social resilience, some on economic resilience, and some on physical resilience. While most acknowledge the need for integration across the various domains, it seems to me that the integration is not as robust and productive as it might be – or perhaps as it will become as the discipline matures. I think that that integration of the social, economic and physical aspects of resilience is critical for practitioners to fully grasp the implications of resilience for their communities. This integration may also allow the research to be more useful to those in communities who struggle with the day to day problems of trying to find practical ways forward. Academic research that is too narrowly drawn and done without a view of how non-specialists will use the results will not be very helpful to the local mayor or business person who must make day to day resource decisions. Integrating work like that being done in the area of indicators of resilience by Susan Cutter (Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute, University of South Carolina) and Walter Peacock (Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center, Texas A&M University) seems to strike just the right balance between great academic research and potentially really useful information for communities.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Engaging the Full-Fabric of Communities
Not only must disaster resilience be the cornerstone of a new disaster management culture in the US, and not only must it be built on resilient communities and regions, but disaster resilience must also engage the “full fabric” of our society. While the efforts of governments (federal, state, local and tribal) are critical, they are not sufficient. True disaster resilience requires a complex collaboration of government at all levels with crucial private sector energies and assets. The private sector is not limited to the private business sector but also includes the non-governmental, volunteer, academic, non-profit, faith-based and associational organizations that make up our social fabric. All of these organizations are important to the resilience continuum – some are critical. The private business sector provides much of the nation’s critical infrastructure and must be integrated either voluntarily or through regulation. Each method of integration will have an accepted and welcomed place. The business sector will have an incentive to participate in resilience activities where they can be shown to prevent loss and ensure a degree of protection from business disruptions. Many large businesses already operate across the resilience continuum – preventing those things that seem preventable, protecting critical assets and information, responding to disruptions as required and getting their business back on line as quickly as possible. Because the best of them operate this way on a daily basis, the private business sector inherently understands disaster resilience. It is critical that the Department of Homeland Security continue its efforts to engage, involve, and embed all of these critical non-governmental elements into the full homeland security “enterprise.”
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Empowering Resilient Communities
Just as “all disasters are local,” national disaster resilience can be best developed from the bottom up, starting with communities. Resilient communities must be the foundation of a national disaster resilience culture and another essential goal of a revitalized and effective Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Ultimately, it is a community’s responsibility to prepare for recovery. It must also be the community’s responsibility before an event to:
· understand specifically what constitutes recovery for that community;
· strategize and deliberately plan specific actions to achieve the recovery, and
· set expectations on how that recovery will be achieved and what the “new normal” will be following the disaster.
Disaster resilient communities would have the goal of rapidly returning to normal functioning after a disaster. They would do so using the full resilience continuum of prevent, protect, respond and recover appropriately within their context.
A nation of disaster resilient communities would meet this goal by working to protect, prevent and mitigate appropriate systems with a focus on eventual full recovery. They coordinate response to rapidly achieve recovery of normal community function and capacity and ensure that recovery is rapid, equitable, and leaves the community at least as strong as it was prior to the disaster.
Disaster resilient communities will have realistic expectations of outside assistance following a disaster based on comprehensive vulnerability and capability self-assessments and community developed plans and processes across the full resilience continuum.
Nationally, DHS must help nurture communities in developing their resilience; help train them in concepts, tools, practices which develop, support, and enhance disaster resilience, and work with communities and regions in exercising their resilient characteristics. In return, resilient communities enhance the power of national programs by inculcating realistic expectations and by applying local power in an effective and efficient way. This evolution harmonizes DHS’s roles and allows DHS to change from being solely a federal “control” agent (which it is sometimes seen as doing ineffectively) to become a facilitator of a rapid and effective return to normal community function (a role which will properly and successfully leverage the federal resources and might).
A number of surveys and studies reveal that the current federal hierarchical, response-centric approach has elevated the public’s expectations of federal responsibility and capability well beyond the nation’s needs —and the Federal government’s ability to deliver -- particularly in light of longer term trends such as the projected increased in climate variability. The nation would be better served to engage communities in a way that sets more realistic expectations and increases the incentives to become resilient at the local and regional level.
· understand specifically what constitutes recovery for that community;
· strategize and deliberately plan specific actions to achieve the recovery, and
· set expectations on how that recovery will be achieved and what the “new normal” will be following the disaster.
Disaster resilient communities would have the goal of rapidly returning to normal functioning after a disaster. They would do so using the full resilience continuum of prevent, protect, respond and recover appropriately within their context.
A nation of disaster resilient communities would meet this goal by working to protect, prevent and mitigate appropriate systems with a focus on eventual full recovery. They coordinate response to rapidly achieve recovery of normal community function and capacity and ensure that recovery is rapid, equitable, and leaves the community at least as strong as it was prior to the disaster.
Disaster resilient communities will have realistic expectations of outside assistance following a disaster based on comprehensive vulnerability and capability self-assessments and community developed plans and processes across the full resilience continuum.
Nationally, DHS must help nurture communities in developing their resilience; help train them in concepts, tools, practices which develop, support, and enhance disaster resilience, and work with communities and regions in exercising their resilient characteristics. In return, resilient communities enhance the power of national programs by inculcating realistic expectations and by applying local power in an effective and efficient way. This evolution harmonizes DHS’s roles and allows DHS to change from being solely a federal “control” agent (which it is sometimes seen as doing ineffectively) to become a facilitator of a rapid and effective return to normal community function (a role which will properly and successfully leverage the federal resources and might).
A number of surveys and studies reveal that the current federal hierarchical, response-centric approach has elevated the public’s expectations of federal responsibility and capability well beyond the nation’s needs —and the Federal government’s ability to deliver -- particularly in light of longer term trends such as the projected increased in climate variability. The nation would be better served to engage communities in a way that sets more realistic expectations and increases the incentives to become resilient at the local and regional level.
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