Resilience Assessment Tool Research Articles

Assessment of Urban Resilience to Natural Disasters with a System Dynamics Tool: Case Study of Latvian Municipality

Abstract Research focuses on linking climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction strategies. The aim of the research is to test an urban resilience assessment tool through a local case study. The tool is based on integrating two methods. Multi-criteria analysis and system dynamics model is used to create a dynamic Urban Resilience Index. For the case study a local medium sized town is chosen in Latvia that is subject to flood risk. The results of the model simulation show that the model is suitable for both short term and long term resilience assessment. Future studies must focus on the precision of such a tool, which in this study could not be evaluated. Overall, the tool presented can contribute to offsetting the existing knowledge gaps between climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction for better policy planning and strengthening urban resilience on the local level.

Measuring the resilience of criminogenic ecosystems to global disruption: A case-study of COVID-19 in China.

This paper uses resilience as a lens through which to analyse disasters and other major threats to patterns of criminal behaviour. A set of indicators and mathematical models are introduced that aim to quantitatively describe changes in crime levels in comparison to what could otherwise be expected, and what might be expected by way of adaptation and subsequent resumption of those patterns. The validity of the proposed resilience assessment tool is demonstrated using commercial theft data from the COVID-19 pandemic period. A 64 per cent reduction in crime was found in the studied city (China) during an 83-day period, before daily crime levels bounced back to higher than expected values. The proposed resilience indicators are recommended as benchmarking instruments for evaluating and comparing the global impact of COVID-19 policies on crime and public safety.

Does the Common Agricultural Policy enhance farming systems’ resilience? Applying the Resilience Assessment Tool (ResAT) to a farming system case study in the Netherlands

The European Commission has emphasised that a more resilient farming sector is required to better respond to current and future economic, societal, and environmental challenges. Consequently, supporting resilience has become an important aim of the proposals of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) post-2020. However, interactions between public policies and resilience outcomes have hardly been researched in-depth. This study analyses whether and how the CAP and its national implementations enable or constrain the resilience of farming systems. For this purpose, we introduce the Resilience Assessment Tool (ResAT): a heuristic that conceptualises how policy outputs enable or constrain farming systems’ resilience. The tool consists of three dimensions (robustness, adaptability, and transformability) with four indicators each. The ResAT is applied to a Dutch case study: the intensive arable farming system in De Veenkoloniën. We conclude that the CAP and its national implementation strongly support the robustness of this farming system, but that the policy enables adaptability much less and rather constrains transformability. The article ends with a reflection on how the application of the ResAT allows for new insights into how EU agricultural policies influence the resilience of farming systems.

Extension Programming Resource for Building Farm and Farm Family Resilience

Farms and farm families experience stress due to the interconnectedness between healthy farm businesses and healthy family members. The resource Farm and Farm Family Risk and Resilience Framework: A Guide for Extension Educational Programming supports Extension educators in providing programming for the farming population. The guide includes a 96-article literature review, a farm and farm family risk and resilience framework, logic models, assessment and teaching tools, and a program planning tool. The guide can help Extension educators assimilate programming approaches and content to reduce risk, build resilience, and strengthen systems.

After the hurricane: Validating a resilience assessment methodology

With increasing utility grid outages in the United States, there is growing interest in assessing risk and developing mitigation strategies to reduce the impact of grid outages. Working with the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) developed a replicable energy resilience assessment methodology and investment decision tool to: (1) identify and score hazards and vulnerabilities at the site level; (2) analyze risks to energy infrastructure; and (3) identify and prioritize energy resilience investments. This work improves on existing resilience assessment methodologies and tools by combining a bottom-up, all-hazards assessment methodology with top-down geographic information system mapping capabilities to provide an innovative, dynamic tool for identifying and prioritizing actionable solutions. This process combines probabilistic forecasting with an iterative approach for continuously updating and reassessing risks to address temporal dynamism. Relationships among systems are modeled and visualized to estimate the effectiveness of resilience actions across multiple interdependent systems and inform financial priorities through cost-difficulty-impact trade-offs. The approach is validated in a case study at Tyndall Air Force Base (AFB) in Florida, which experienced a Category 5 hurricane in 2018. The risks and mitigation strategies identified pre-hurricane are compared with post-hurricane, realized impacts. The assessment effectively identifies risks and actions to increase site energy resilience, but the methodology can be enhanced though greater consideration of the interdependencies between the energy system and related systems like transportation, communication, and food/water systems, which impact the recovery of the energy system and the base.

Psychometric evaluation of the traditional Chinese version of the resilience Scale-14 and assessment of resilience in Hong Kong adolescents

BackgroundA reliable and valid instrument that accurately measures resilience is crucial for the development of interventions to enhance the resilience of adolescents and promote their positive mental well-being. However, there is a lack of adolescent resilience assessment tools with good psychometric properties suitable for use with Hong Kong participants. This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the traditional Chinese version of the Resilience Scale-14.MethodsBetween October 2017 and January 2018, a stratified random sample of 1816 Grade 7 (aged 11–15 years) students from all 18 districts of Hong Kong were invited to participate in the study. Subjects were asked to respond to the traditional Chinese version of the Resilience Scale-14, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale for children, and Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale. The psychometric properties, including the internal consistency, content validity, convergent and discriminant validity, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and test–retest reliability of the Resilience Scale-14 were assessed.ResultsThe translated scale demonstrated good internal consistency and test–retest reliability, excellent content validity, and appropriate convergent and discriminant validity. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis supported the two-factor structure of the traditional Chinese version of the Resilience Scale-14.ConclusionsResults suggest that the translated scale is a reliable and valid tool to assess the resilience of young Hong Kong Chinese adolescents. Healthcare professionals could use the newly translated scale to assess resilience levels among Hong Kong adolescents and develop interventions that can help them combat mental health problems and lead healthier lives.Trial registrationClinicaltrials.gov ID NCT03538145 (retrospectively registered on May 15, 2018).

Assessment of drought resilience of hospitals in Sri Lanka: a cross-sectional survey.

Drought is an extreme weather event. Drought-related health effects can increase demands on hospitals while restricting their functional capacity. In July 2017, Sri Lanka had been experiencing prolonged drought for around a year and data on the resilience of hospitals were required. A cross-sectional survey was done in five of the most drought-affected and vulnerable districts using two specially developed questionnaires. Ninety hospitals were assessed using the Baseline Hospital Drought Resilience Assessment (BHDRA) tool, of which 24 purposefully selected hospitals were also assessed using the more detailed Comprehensive Hospital Drought Resilience Assessment (CHDRA) tool and observation visits. Of the hospitals assessed, 73 and 77 reported having adequate supplies of drinking and non-drinking water, respectively. Of the 24 hospitals studied using the CHDRA tool, bacteriological water quality testing was done in 8, with samples from only 4 hospitals being satisfactory. Adequate electricity supply was reported by 77 hospitals, of which 72 had at least one generator. None of the hospitals used rainwater or storm water harvesting, water recycling, or solar or wind power. Of the 24 hospitals selected for detailed analysis, awareness materials on safeguarding water or electricity and avoiding wasting water or electricity were displayed in only 6 hospitals; disaster preparedness plans were available in 9; and drought was considered as a hazard only in 6. The findings indicate that drought needs to be considered as an important hazard in hospital risk assessments. Drought preparedness, response and recovery should be embedded in hospital disaster preparedness plans to ensure the continuity of essential health services during emergencies.

A resilience matrix approach for measuring and mitigating disaster-induced population displacement

Globally, risk factors for population displacement due to major disasters are on the rise. These factors include the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, aging infrastructure, growing populations, and increasing urbanization. In cases of widespread damage, tools are needed to support complicated multiyear reconstruction efforts so that populations can return. We adapt the resilience matrix approach [1] as an organizing framework and resilience assessment tool to the problem of population displacement under conditions of damaged infrastructure. The resulting Population Resilience Matrix (PRM) links infrastructure reconstruction directly to the goal of reducing displacement due to infrastructure damage through performance metrics across the physical, social, information, and project management domains. This approach yields a summary of status and priorities that accounts for funding availability and the multi-phase recovery process. The PRM is applied to a synthetic extreme flood scenario, and includes detailed event-specific, locally relevant recovery assessment metrics. A practical approach to identifying the contributions of interdependent infrastructure systems to displacement is also outlined. The PRM is intended to support decision makers with coordinating roles, such as local disaster recovery managers. This approach is compatible with and complementary to US guidance on pre- and post-disaster planning and can also be applied internationally.

Developing a family resilience assessment tool for health visiting/public health nursing practice using virtual commissioning, high-fidelity simulation and focus groups.

UK public health nurse assessment of family resilience is a necessary component of monitoring family health and children's development and identifying areas for change. This research was part of an exploration of Welsh public health nurses' understanding of 'family resilience' as a concept underpinning their practice. From it, the Family Resilience Assessment Instrument Tool (FRAITTM www.frait.wales/) was developed for public health nurses use. We report on a virtual commissioning process using focus groups and an immersive simulation suite to test a FRAIT prototype in a safe environment before field testing. Virtual commissioning design: Hydra-Minerva Immersive Simulation Suite - individual public health nurses presented with a multi-media scenario as they used the prototype FRAIT. Follow-up focus groups for usability insights before field testing. Virtual commissioning raised real-world issues which public health nurses discussed in focus groups. Issues were scoring, absence of information, focusing on family resilience, identifying adults caring for children, potential for use, identifying need and monitoring change, potential impact of using FRAIT and fitting it to everyday practice. Prototype testing like this allowed us to fine tune the FRAIT for field testing.

Do sustainable community rating systems address resilience?

Extensive damages and numerous casualties are produced by natural disasters and hazards in urban areas. Hence, the absorption, recovery and adaptation to them through resilience are highly necessary to ensure operation and enhancement of urban systems. The significance of urbanization led to launch some tools such as BREEAM Communities, CASBEE for Urban Development, DNGB Urban Districts, Green Star Communities, LEED for Neighbourhood Development or STAR Community to promote sustainable development in communities and cities. After selecting the most relevant community rating systems, this research determined their adequacy to handle urban challenges by benchmarking them against the major international efforts and some relevant resilience assessment tools extracted from the study of eight global frameworks. Thus, the Sendai Framework and the 2030 Agenda represented the former, whilst the latter considered the City Resilience Index and the City Resilience Profiling Tool. The findings of this investigation revealed that the indicators of STAR Community and BREEAM Communities reflected the highest level of correspondence with the resilience assessment frameworks. However, the existence of prominent gaps in all the screened community rating systems suggests the need for developing a new tool involving both resilience and sustainability.

Towards a More Resilient Delhi: Rapid Urbanization and Climate Change

The discourse on resilient cities encapsulates various analogies, which are further constructed through the work of researchers in creation of several resilience assessment methodologies and toolkits. Despite the presence of numerous resilience assessment tools, there is an apparent lack of participation of residents of the global south within the assessment and iterative transformation processes. The situation, hence, is not truly represented through application of these tools in certain socio-political climates such as of India. Consistent economic growth of India has resulted in rapid urbanization of major cities. But, this has not been supplemented with proper planning, resulting in imbalances in all spheres of city infrastructure. Delhi, capital city of India, has been one of the worst hit cities. The hot seasons have caused thousands of fatalities in the past few years. An attempt is made to review the application of current resilience tools in Delhi against the backdrop of the sustainable development goals. In an attempt to improve the approach of these existing tools, an initial iteration is conducted, hinging on qualitative data obtained through surveying a sample population of the city and accessible quantitative metric data. Possible intervention scenarios are further suggested in view of aforementioned stressors and resilience scores. Research question: Where are the current resilience tools found lacking in the case of the global south, specifically in Delhi? How can the applicability of these tools be improved without compromising the deliverables yet ensuring an all-inclusive approach? Key findings: (1) The city is found lacking in adequate infrastructure facilities to its residents especially within the ambits of basic water and sanitation provision and healthcare services. (2) The city is relatively unprepared to face unforeseen events, both at the administrative and the grassroots levels. The lack of knowledge transfer and cooperation are largely evident.

Tiered Approach to Resilience Assessment

Regulatory agencies have long adopted a three-tier framework for risk assessment. We build on this structure to propose a tiered approach for resilience assessment that can be integrated into the existing regulatory processes. Comprehensive approaches to assessing resilience at appropriate and operational scales, reconciling analytical complexity as needed with stakeholder needs and resources available, and ultimately creating actionable recommendations to enhance resilience are still lacking. Our proposed framework consists of tiers by which analysts can select resilience assessment and decision support tools to inform associated management actions relative to the scope and urgency of the risk and the capacity of resource managers to improve system resilience. The resilience management framework proposed is not intended to supplant either risk management or the many existing efforts of resilience quantification method development, but instead provide a guide to selecting tools that are appropriate for the given analytic need. The goal of this tiered approach is to intentionally parallel the tiered approach used in regulatory contexts so that resilience assessment might be more easily and quickly integrated into existing structures and with existing policies.

Globalizing urban resilience

ABSTRACT Urban resilience, a new urban development and governance agenda, is being rolled out from the top down by a network of public, private, non-profit sector actors forming a global urban resilience complex: producing norms that circulate globally, creating assessment tools rendering urban resilience technical and managerial, and commodifying urban resilience such that private sector involvement becomes integral to urban development planning and governance. The Rockefeller Foundation's 100 Resilience Cities Program is at the center of this complex, working with the World Bank, global consultants, NGOs, and private sector service providers to enroll cities, develop and circulate urban resilience assessment tools, and create a market catalyzed by the notion of a resilience dividend. Notwithstanding the claim of this program being open and inclusive, aspects of its initial operationalization in Jakarta suggest that urban resilience assessment tools preempt alternative understandings of urban resilience and marginalizing voices of the city's most vulnerable populations.

Monitoring and evaluation of climate resilience for agricultural development – A review of currently available tools

Building climate resilience, defined as the ability to anticipate, absorb, accommodate, or recover from climate change in a timely and efficient manner, is becoming a major priority of development across multiple sectors. However, there is still no consensus on how resilience should be assessed despite the release of numerous theoretical papers on the topic. Various measurement frameworks and recommendations have emerged, but their applicability is yet to be critically assessed. Using a comprehensive review and a systematic selection approach, we review resilience assessment tools developed for the context of climate change and agricultural development, and their linkages to theoretical frameworks, with a particular focus on the choice of indicators and the scale and methods of measurement. Fifteen tools originating from diverse organizations were selected and evaluated according to a measurement framework. Our study finds that, while some of the tools remain embedded in classical approaches, by simply adding a resilience lens to previous tools and by recycling indicators, others demonstrate a true attempt to re-think in order to account for resilience dimensions. We conclude that for the use of resilience assessment tools, a major challenge is to ensure that simple and operational tools can address complexity. Full baseline should comprise both quantitative and qualitative data collection, and include more systemic indicators as well as indicators of stability and shocks. Changes should be tracked with regular monitoring and evaluation using simple tools based on key variables that capture short-term adaptive processes and changes in states, at the appropriate system level. Clear pathways to human well-being, including transformation, should be discussed through system-oriented approaches, to discard potential undesired resilient states. Finally, robust outcome and impact records from the use of these tools are needed to demonstrate whether the resilience concept is useful over time in driving development into more desirable paths.

Building organisational resilience for the construction industry

PurposeThis paper aims to explore New Zealand construction practitioners’ approaches to organisational resilience practice in built environment discipline, based on survey and interview results. The objective was to explore the resilience practice within the construction sector with the intention of developing a resilient assessment tool specifically for construction organisations.Design/methodology/approachA literature review was conducted to gather information on assessment tools for measuring organisational resilience, their characteristics and indicators. Subsequently, a set of questions was formulated to collate opinions from construction practitioners in New Zealand, using a questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews.FindingsThis paper concludes by showing that the construction industry lacks resilience practice, especially from an organisational perspective. The findings suggest that the industry would benefit from a resilience assessment tool to help improve resilience. The adoption of such a tool could potentially enhance organisational capacity to recover quickly from crises and disasters.Practical implicationsImproving the resilience of construction organisations to natural disasters not only minimises the negative consequences to their organisations post-disaster and enhances their organisational performance during business as usual but also helps to improve community resilience.Originality/valueImproving the resilience of construction organisations also helps to improve community resilience and overall post-disaster recovery. However, at present, little research has been conducted on how construction organisations deal with the risk of natural disasters.

The erosive effects of small disasters on household absorptive capacity in Niamey: a nested HEA approach

The Household Economy Approach (HEA) is a tool routinely used to monitor household-level vulnerability to food security shocks in rural sub-Saharan Africa. Efforts are now focused on applying the HEA in urban contexts. Previous work has shown specific limitations to this method when applied to cities, where livelihoods are diverse, social capital is especially important for managing shocks, and multiple hazards interact. The paper proposes a household resilience assessment tool that incorporates elements of the HEA to provide potential for a joined-up rural–urban output, but that includes additional data and specific analytical approaches in recognition of urban contexts. The tool is piloted in Niamey, Niger. The experience showed collection of the required data to be challenging. Results identified low levels of resilience amongst flood-exposed households associated with inequalities in social capital ties and variable access to food and security post-flood. Responding to loss, households expended savings and took on debt. This has implications for focused resilience building and flood response planning.

Development of a Tool for Assessing Commercial Building Resilience

Built environment resilience is becoming a more established concept, although there are no schemes yet devised to comprehensively measure building resilience from the point of view of a commercial building owner. For a commercial building owner, ‘building resilience’ can be defined as the ability to protect, maintain, or restore the functionality of, value of, and income generated by a building after a damaging event or circumstance within a prescribed time frame. There is a need to measure the resilience of individual buildings to help owners make better decisions and protect their assets, to better assess the built environment resilience of larger geographic units such as communities and cities, and to complement existing assessments of building sustainability. Based on a conceptual examination of resilience measurement and a review of the literature and other resources, this study develops a new resilience assessment tool: the Australian Resilience Measurement Scheme for buildings (ARMS). The scheme adopts resilience as a holistic concept incorporating physical, infrastructural, environmental, economic–social, political–regulatory, and organisational resilience, and is rated according to dimensions, subdimensions, and items scored on a points system. The scheme will allow the aspects in which a building is performing well or poorly to be identified as well as give an overall resilience rating. This paper also examines the lessons to be learned from sustainability assessment tools for measuring and assessing resilience in terms of tool structure, the weightings of items and dimensions, item measurability, whether items are performance based or feature based, and benchmarking. The tool is its infancy, and work to further develop it is continuing. As has occurred with the assessment of building sustainability, the assessment of building resilience will increase in importance to stakeholders of the built environment.

On the suitability of assessment tools for guiding communities towards disaster resilience

Resilience is now a ubiquitous concept in many science and policy circles. It is a polysemic concept that has been defined differently in different disciplines and contexts. An often used definition, in the context of community resilience, is provided by the National Academies. According to this definition resilience is “the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from and more successfully adapt to adverse events” (the four abilities). Over the past two decades various tools have been developed for assessing community resilience. This study examines 36 selected community resilience assessment tools to find out if they are suitable for adequately addressing the four abilities of resilience. A framework, identifying various measures that can contribute to addressing each of the four resilience abilities is developed. Evaluating selected tools using this framework indicates only few of them are reasonably suitable for addressing measures related to the four resilience abilities. Overall performance of the selected tools is particularly poor in terms of addressing measures related to absorption and adaptation abilities. Detailed results related to performance of each tool are provided. Developers can use these results to understand shortcomings of their assessment tools and address them in the revised versions.

A critical review of selected tools for assessing community resilience

The concept of resilience is increasingly used in academic and policy circles. To operationalize this concept and reduce the ambiguities surrounding it, since the turn of the century, various resilience assessment methodologies have been introduced. This paper provides a critical review of 36 selected community resilience assessment tools. These tools have been developed by a variety of entities, including national and local organizations, international donor organizations, and academic researchers. First, an overview of the selected tools is presented. This overview analysis shows that while some commonalities exist, there are also considerable differences between the tools. Next, based on literature review, an analytical framework is developed that identifies six criteria for evaluating performance of resilience assessment tools. These are, namely, addressing multiple dimensions of resilience, accounting for cross-scale relationships, capturing temporal dynamism, addressing uncertainties, employing participatory approaches, and developing action plans. Results show that limited success has been achieved in addressing these criteria. In terms of comprehensiveness, the environmental dimension has received relatively less attention in spite of its significance for building community resilience. Further improvements are needed to account for dynamics over time and across space. More attention to employing iterative processes that involve scenario-based planning is needed to better address challenges associated with uncertainties. Results also show that more attention needs to be paid to stakeholder participation in developing assessment tools. The paper concludes by highlighting several other areas of weakness that need to be addressed and discussing major challenges that still remain.

Factors Affecting Resilience in Families of Adults With Diabetes.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the impact of family resilience on families of adults with type 1 or type 2 diabetes. A convenience sample of 77 participants was recruited from several diabetes education/support group programs and 1 private medical practice to participate in this descriptive correlational study. Participants completed several instruments measuring family member satisfaction with components of family functioning, family resilience, life orientation (measure of optimism), and diabetes knowledge. Family members were predominantly female (71%) and white (97%), and they had a minimum of a college education (79%). A significant positive relationship was found between family functioning and family resilience (r = 0.59, P < .01). Regression analysis revealed that family functioning was the only predictor of family resilience, explaining 46% of the variance. Positive outlook and diabetes knowledge were not significant contributors to the model. A significant low correlation was found between family member's level of diabetes knowledge and measure of optimism. Additional findings demonstrated that the Family Resilience Assessment tool was a reliable measure, with a Cronbach alpha of 0.91. Family functioning was associated with family resilience. Future research should focus on replicating the study in a more heterogeneous population, with further investigation into the needs of family members of adults with diabetes.