Disaster Resilience Integrated Framework for Transformation (DRIFT): A new approach to theorising and operationalising resilience

Abstract

Abstract Despite the heightened interest in resilience over the past decade, theorising and operationalising resilience across sustainable development, disaster risk reduction and climate change and adaptation realms remains a challenge. The frameworks that have been developed to theorise and operationalise resilience tend to be vague, and, in some cases, theoretically weak. The major challenge, we believe, is the lack of clarity on the resilience capacities required to deal with the destabilising events. In this article, we provide a chronology of resilience, on a decade basis, from 1970 to 2016 in order to establish the connections between resilience and capacity literatures, and how these literatures affect the operationalisation of resilience. Based on the resilience and capacity literature review, a new approach to resilience termed Disaster Resilience Integrated Framework for Transformation (DRIFT) is presented, which advances the notion of capacity, as one of the principal bridges between the resilience theory and practice. DRIFT outlines the linkages between context, risk drivers, capacities and processes that are required to deal with the risk in order to achieve positive outcomes. We present the preventive, anticipative, absorptive, adaptive and transformative capacities as distinct elements, although in practice there are overlaps between these capacities. Presenting the capacities as distinct elements allows us to unpack the elements and the processes that may be critical in both theorising and operationalising resilience. Looking to the future, DRIFT is a first step towards developing a global resilience index, to be applied at various scales, including global, regional and local levels.