Community Resilience: what does it take to be resilient

Transcription

1 Community Resilience: what does it take to be resilient ENGINEERING RESILIENT COMMUNITIES SAME Savannah Post 2017 ENGINEERING WEEK (E-Week) TECHNICAL TRAINING CONFERENCE Feb 22-23, 2017

2 Resilience! Resilient An ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change - Merriam-Webster But what are we being Resilient to? The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. - English Oxford Dictionaries Page 2

3 Claire?

4 Stay Puft Marshmallow Man?

5 Computer Outage?

6 Crime?

7 Hurricanes? Charleston Hurricane Matthew Significant flooding; Breached seawall High winds Massive power outages Atlanta High winds Rain Migrants from coastal areas; GA, FL, SC

8 Sea Level Rise? Tybee Island Sea Level Rise Adaptation Plan Sea Level Rise will lead to: More frequent closures of Highway 80 (sole road access) Tidal backup of stormwater drainage Increased coastal erosion But what about: Economic Disruption, potentially as a result of SLR and coastal flooding impacting tourism

9 Resilient? What are we trying to be resilient to? Is it everything, or is it a combination of some things, or is it a specific scenario? Certainly not a one size fits all define your scenarios What is your baseline? Establish clear vision and set of objectives

10 Resilience Definition Resilience The U.S. National Academies of Science (2012): The ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from, and more successfully adapt to adverse events.

11 Resilience Definition Resilience US Department of Defense Directive Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience (1/14/2016): Ability to anticipate, prepare for, and adapt to changing conditions and withstand, respond to, and recover from disruptions

12 Resilience Definition Resilience The Rockefeller Foundation define urban resilience as: The capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses and systems within a city to survive, adapt, and grow no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience Acute Shocks: Earthquakes, floods, disease outbreaks, terrorist attacks Chronic Stresses: High unemployment, chronic food & water shortages, endemic violence, inefficient public transportation systems

13 Resilience Definition Resilience CO Resiliency Framework Definition: The ability of communities to rebound, positively adapt to, or thrive amidst changing conditions or challenges including disasters and climate change and maintain quality of life, healthy growth, durable systems, and conservation of resources for present and future generation

14 Resilience Definition Resilience UNISDR Definition: The ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate to and recover from the affects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions

15 Resilience: Growing in Popularity! 15

16 Global Risk Report 2017

17 Shocks and Stresses Resilience is a large and growing concept, variously including environmental, economic, social and other forms of resilience as well as disaster resilience. Chronic Stresses Spectrum of Stress Acute Shock Climate change Sea level rise Environmental degradation Social, economic, cultural stress Frequent Interactions Disasters Natural Manmade

18 Driving Forces Urbanization increases exposure to capital losses 50% of world population lives in metro areas (>60% in US) o 70%+ projected to live in metros by 2050 Frequency of extreme weather events increasing 1,060 natural disasters in 2015, up 3X from 1985 Annual $ losses from shock events skyrocketing Capital losses $250B+ per year 70% of losses are uninsured Major private sector investment in Cities

19 Measuring Success In order to measurably/demonstrably know that you are more resilient you have to know what you are trying to be more resilient to. UNISDR Disaster Resilient Scorecard: Becoming more resilient and prepared for 2 natural disaster scenarios 100 Resilient Cities: Becoming more resilient to a wide variety of shocks and stresses

20 The Disaster Resilience Scorecard Background Resilience defined by UNISDR Ten Essentials o Making My City Resilient Campaign: 3,465 Cities Based on UNISDR s Ten Essentials of Disaster Risk Reduction and focused on City/Metropolitan Area o Quantitative tool to construct multiyear blue print for actions to improve preparedness and efficiently apply Capital Expenditures o Tool to understand elements of resilience o Engage Private Sector when possible Individual assessments to define preparedness: o Definition of a counsel of perfection o 81 Questions with 0 to 5 Rating o Not a tool to compare City A to City B o Set a baseline and then periodically re-evaluate o Engage local Private Sector when possible The scorecard is free for anyone to use Several Pilot Demonstrations completed

21 The UN s Ten Essentials

22 100 Resilient Cities City Resilience Framework: Built on four essential dimensions of urban resilience: - Health & Wellbeing; - Economy & Society; - Infrastructure & Environment; and - Leadership & Strategy.

23 Becoming More Resilient The ambition to be more resilient is a good one, whether you focus on a single shock, or a variety of shocks and stresses Takeaways: Decide what you are vulnerable to / most vulnerable to and set out specific actions to become more resilient in relation to those vulnerabilities Measure for success towards objective Identify Resilience Dividends what are the co-benefits of resilient activities Partnerships: Traditional and new; internal and external Communicate to stakeholders: Will help with buy-in and overall success!

24 Thank You! Jon Philipsborn Climate Adaptation Practice Director