Multi-stage composition of urban resilience and the influence of pre-disaster urban functionality on urban resilience

Abstract

The research of system resilience has a decision-making significance in mitigating disasters, containing the effects of disasters, and performing recovery activities. The pre-disaster preparation stage plays an important role in urban disaster response and disaster recovery. This study proposes a multi-level urban functionality assessment framework and a new multi-stage resilience assessment model comprising pre-disaster preparation, disaster response, and post-disaster recovery stages. The pre-disaster preparation stage of urban resilience containing three situations (steady rise, continued reduction, and dynamic change) is studied. The proposed functionality framework and the resilience assessment model are implemented to the urban resilience assessment. The feasibility and the applicability of the framework and the model are tested through a case study involving 31 cities in China. The results show that the functionalities of the 31 cities are in the average, fair, and poor levels. Most cities are in the dynamic change process instead of maintaining a constant level in the pre-disaster preparation stage. The curve slope of the dynamic change process of resilience can reflect the resilience change trend of the urban system in the life cycle and the difficulty of improving the urban resilience. Considering the case study, the authors put forward strategies for improving the resilience of some cities before disasters. In view of the obtained results, the proposed resilience model and framework can reflect the influence of pre-disaster urban functionality on the urban resilience. The improved strategy method can be a tool for policy makers to improve disaster response and post-disaster recover ability of the urban system.