Abstract
Abstract. The resilience of our cities to weather extremes relies both on physical environmental factors and on socio-economic factors. The latter includes communication processes among the members of an urban community. This paper presents a study that aims at appraising how public outreach campaigns influence urban resilience. According to this research, seizing the added value of science outreach efforts calls for an assessment method that takes into consideration the interactions between communication processes and other urban resilience drivers. The paper begins by presenting examples of methods to assess urban resilience to weather extremes. We then propose an approach to comprehend the impact of communication activities on resilience in the context of urban flood resilience strategies. We use five guiding criteria to define “resilience communication indicators” and we present two communication assessment experiments based on these criteria. These experiments were undertaken to assess communication activities addressed to non-specialist audiences and tailored for a flood resilience project in the Paris region. Different research methods were tested through these experiments, with the goal of comprehending their strengths and weaknesses in the framework of urban resilience strategies.
Highlights
Cities are complex systems, with multiple functions and interacting components, where climate pressures contribute to their complexity (Ruth and Coelho, 2007)
We examine the following: i. the variables that are available in the context of a flood resilience project (RainGain) and that can be adopted as indicators of the impact of communication on urban resilience to climate risks; ii. the strengths and weaknesses of different methods that can be employed to monitor these indicators
The focus is on cities facing climate risks: we present examples of resilience assessment frameworks that are adequate to urban areas coping with extreme weather (Sect. 3); we discuss the role of communication in flood resilience strategies implemented in the Paris region and we outline guidelines to define what we call resilience communication indicators” (RCIs) for cities facing climate risks (Sect. 4); we compare different communication assessment techniques that have been tested in the framework of RainGain, a European research project on urban flood resilience (Sect. 5)
Summary
With multiple functions and interacting components, where climate pressures contribute to their complexity (Ruth and Coelho, 2007). 3); we discuss the role of communication in flood resilience strategies implemented in the Paris region and we outline guidelines to define what we call RCIs for cities facing climate risks The resilience assessment approaches presented are quite heterogeneous in terms of the concept of resilience they refer to, the system and disturbances they consider, the selection of indicators and variables, and the degree of the on-site implementation All these techniques propose a number of indicators to monitor social factors that are related to communication. We present three examples of resilience assessment frameworks that consider communication processes and infrastructure, a feature that has recently gained importance among the available indicators for cities coping with weather extremes (for a review, see Vicari, 2018)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
