Resilience Challenges Research Articles

Using a Serious Game as an Elicitation Tool in Interview Research: Reflections on Methodology.

It can be difficult to understand the process of making decisions in health care, because of both the complexity of health care systems and the demands faced by health care professionals. Serious games offer an underexplored opportunity to elicit data about decision-making. In this article, we present and reflect on a methodological case study where we used a serious game as part of a semistructured interview to study the process of decision-making. The game Resilience Challenge presented a patient's journey through a hospital, where a player had to make decisions that influenced patient care. The game was used during interviews with 20 nurses, both in person and remotely. Having a mini debrief with a participant after each game scenario provides to be a helpful technique to understand the participants' decision-making process and elicit tacit knowledge about their work. Serious games show promise as a methodological research tool to elicit the process of decision-making among health care professionals.

Building resilience for sustainability of MSMEs post COVID-19 outbreak: An Indian handicraft industry outlook

The handicraft business constitutes concept selling rather than mere product selling, which is highly dependent on demand. Handicrafts' Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) have an expanding market in developed countries. The impact of the pandemic on this industry is severe due to the industry's informal nature and seasonal demand. The survival and resilience of these handicraft MSMEs face many challenges in the post-COVID-19 outbreak. The focus of the present study is to understand and analyze the key challenges for building resilience in handicraft MSMEs by scrutinizing the existing literature and interactions with stakeholders. EFA and the Grey DEMATEL approach are used to analyze the challenges for the adoption of resilience. EFA is used to categorize the challenges into various dimensions. The study has divided the challenges for the inclusion of resilience into survivable, sustainable, and viable categories using EFA to plan for short- and long-term business growth. Grey DEMATEL is being utilized for understanding these contextual relationships for each resilience dimension. Grey systems theory is a methodology that enables the incorporation of improbability and vagueness into the analysis. Findings of the study revealed the influencing challenges for each of the dimensions such as competition from machine-made products, insufficient government support and incentives for export, and inefficient managerial concern and response to internationalization as the prominent challenges. The results of this study illustrate the causal relationships amongst the identified resilience challenges to the various stakeholders. These findings offer practical insights for the government to allocate resources and impose measures to ensure resilience, as well as understanding the cause-effect relationship. Managerial implications and Policy insights for building the resilience of handicraft MSMEs are discussed in detail.

Introduction to the Special Issue: Critical infrastructure protection—the challenge of resilience

Introduction to the Special Issue: Critical infrastructure protection—the challenge of resilience

Spatial exploration of non-resilience to food insecurity, its association with COVID-19 and household coping strategies in East Gojjam districts, Northwest Ethiopia, 2020

The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has posed a significant multifaceted threat to the global community. Ethiopia, as a Sub-Saharan African country, is suffering from chronic food insecurity, and the emergence of such a pandemic will exacerbate the situation. As a result, this study investigated the spatial variation of non-resilience to food insecurity, its relationship with COVID-19, and household coping strategies to become resilient in the long run among households in the East Gojjam Zone of Northwest Ethiopia. From September 22 to December 24, 2020, an agro-ecological-based cross-sectional study of 3532 households was conducted to assess the spatial distribution and associated factors of non-resilience to household food insecurity. The enumeration areas (EAs) and households were chosen using a multistage sampling technique. Data were gathered using a semi-structured questionnaire and checklist using an Android device loaded with an Open Data Kit (ODK) template. Binary logistic regression was used to identify the specific factors associated with household non-resilience to food insecurity. A thematic analysis was conducted to investigate the opportunities and challenges of resilience for household food insecurity. Nearly two-thirds (62.5%) of the households were farmers, 67.9% lived in rural areas, and nearly three-quarters (73.8%) earned less than or equal to ETB 2100 per month. Males headed more than four-fifths of the households (81.7%). We found that nearly two-thirds of the households (60.02%), 95% CI 58.40, 61.64) were food insecure. After bivariate logistic regression, we found that households who were divorced (AOR = 2.54 (1.65, 3.87)), daily laborers (AOR = 2.37 (1.15, 4.87)), government employees (AOR = 2.06 (1.05, 4.05)), residents of highland and hot areas (AOR = 11.5 (5.37, 16.77)) and lowland areas (AOR = 1.35 (1.02, 3.15)) were frustrated by COVID-19 (AOR = 1.23 (1.02, 1.50)) and price inflation (1.89 (AOR = 1.42, 2.56))) were at higher odds of being non-resilient to household food insecurity at a 95% confidence level. Geospatial hot spot analysis revealed that Kurar kebele (the lowest government administrative unit) in Dejen District and Debre Markos town were the red-hotspot areas of household non-resilience to food insecurity. Less than a quarter of the households attempted to cope with food insecurity by adjusting their food consumption, while more than 60% of the households chose none of the coping strategies tested. According to the thematic analysis, the degree of poverty (lack of asset ownership), the COVID-19 pandemic, farm decreased variety, and low crop productivity were identified as challenges to coping with the hardship of resilience to food insecurity. During the COVID-19 pandemic and public emergency, the proportion of households that were unprepared for food insecurity reached its peak. It was recognized that a segment of the population with low economic capacity was more vulnerable to food insecurity and less resilient. Tough developmental gains will be undermined in this case. As a result, each responsible body and stakeholder should develop and implement solid corrective plans for the local context.

Compound[ing] disasters in Puerto Rico: Pathways for virtual transdisciplinary collaboration to enhance community resilience

Puerto Rico has been subject to complex and compounding effects of multiple disasters, exacerbated by sociopolitical, climactic, and geographical challenges that complicate relief and resilience. Interdisciplinary teams are uniquely suited to traverse emerging challenges in post-disaster settings, but there are few studies that leverage transdisciplinary skill sets and virtual co-production of knowledge to build on local autonomous responses. Communities are key sources of information and innovation which can serve as a model for recovery amidst disaster. Thus, an interdisciplinary team of emerging scholars collaborated with Caras con Causa, a local organization in Cataño, Puerto Rico, to develop processes for enhancing autonomous responses to disaster events through participatory pathways, specifically highlighting local knowledge and preferences. The results of this collaboration include: (1) an iterative process model for transdisciplinary co-production in virtual settings and (2) key highlights from post engagement reflections including community-scale definitions of disaster, and limitations to virtual collaboration amidst disaster. Together, these results yielded critical insights and lessons learned, including recommendations for improved project communication methods within transdisciplinary and virtual collaborations. Collectively, the process, it’s resulting products, and the post-engagement reflections demonstrate a pathway for scholars and community members to engage disaster resilience challenges. These strategies are most effectively practiced through focused collaboration with community stakeholders and are paramount in solving real-world challenges related to the increasing complex of compounding disasters.

AudaCITY: A Capacity-Building Research Method for Urban Sustainability Transformation

The scale and urgency of sustainability problems the world over has led to calls for sustainability transformations in cities, regions, and countries. Such calls for transformation are underlain by a persistent knowledge-to-action gap between scientific knowledge production, policy, and practice. To rise to the challenges of sustainability and resilience, municipal administrators need to set evidence-based and ambitious sustainability targets and develop strategies to achieve them. Simultaneously, transdisciplinary sustainability science researchers need to generate scientific knowledge to further enable cities along pathways of transformation. This paper details a collaborative backcasting game, AudaCITY, developed to build transformative capacity in city administrations while also generating deep contextual knowledge to inform a transformative sustainability science research agenda. We present AudaCITY's key features, potential applications and adaptations, and exemplary outputs and outcomes for cities and researchers. We conclude with recommendations for adopting and adapting AudaCITY for use in action-oriented and transformational sustainability science and capacity building.

A New Framework for Sustainable Resilient Houses on the Coastal Areas of Khanh Hoa, Vietnam

With the impacts of tropical storms on Vietnam’s residences, the aim of the study is to produce a new framework for designing sustainable resilient houses in Vietnam’s coastal areas. This study was based on the community’s need to develop a set of guidelines for improving the stability of domestic buildings in storm-prone areas. It also addresses some unresolved issues including storm-proofing techniques and sustainable development in coastal dwellings. The main findings of this study were defined by the use of mixed-method approaches. These research methods involved observational surveys, questionnaires, interviews, case studies, and computer simulations. Particularly, the case studies were simulated by the use of computational fluid dynamics to mimic the storm impacts on existing buildings. These concentrated on the solutions, techniques, benefits, and challenges of sustainable resilience in coastal residences. The results are presented by a framework for designing a sustainable resilient house and a prototype was also tested. Both the framework and the prototype can satisfy the community demands by making energy-efficient buildings and effective wind mitigation guiding other research about developing sustainable and resilient houses in the future.

Agrochemicals, Environment, and Human Health

Global consumption of agrochemicals continues to rise, despite growing evidence of their adverse effects on environmental quality and human health. The extent of increase varies across nations, by type of chemical compounds and by severity of the detrimental impacts. The differential impacts are largely attributable to the level of technology adoption and regulation as well as their enforcement and compliance. The article highlights gaps in technical, legal, and social aspects, which include the paucity of holistic and long-term ecological impact assessment frameworks and lack of consideration for the social dimensions of pesticide use in regulatory decisions. Bridging these gaps, establishing global cooperation for regulation and governance, and a regional/national-level monitoring mechanism are suggested. This, complemented with a policy shift from the current approach of productivity enhancement to augmenting agroecosystem services, would encourage sustainable and nature-positive agriculture equipped to meet the multiple challenges of food security, ecological safety, and climate resilience.

Resilient QUIC Protocol for Emerging Wireless Networks

With the development of communication technology, higher requirements of emerging services in emerging 5G-Advanced wireless network scenarios bring significant challenges to network resilience. It is difficult in conventional transport protocols like TCP and UDP to ensure resilient transmissions in heterogeneous scenarios. As an alternative to the conventional HTTP2/TCP stack, the Quick UDP Internet Connections (QUIC) protocol can realize resilient transmission control since it supports novel features and extensions, such as multi-path transmission and connection migration. In this article, we first analyze the challenges of network resilience in several dominant 5G-Advanced wireless network scenarios with conventional protocols. To tackle these challenges, we propose the first QUIC-enabled resilient transmission control protocol, QUIC-RE5, introducing QUIC to emerging wireless scenarios. QUIC-RE5 contains three customized QUIC-based blocks that enhance the network resilience while satisfying the communication requirements in these scenarios. The experimental results prove that QUIC-RE5 improves the resilience and performance in 5G-Advanced wireless networks, compared to networks using conventional protocols and schemes.

From resilience attributes to city resilience

Resilience challenges for cities require bridging the gap between theorized concepts, such as resilience attributes, and its application to urban planning. Resilience attributes have been used by international policy initiatives to guide urban resilience without paying attention to how these attributes are represented in public policies. We present an analytical approach to examine the application of resilience attributes in resilience public policy. We apply our approach to evaluate the design of the Resilience Strategy developed for Mexico City under the 100 Resilient Cities Program. We find that creating tangible, meaningful action in government for urban resilience is hampered by concepts that cannot easily be translated into urban planning. Our analytical approach allows a practical and systematic assessment of the representation of resilience attributes, offering an opportunity to adjust and reframe the design of resilience policies balancing scientific knowledge with what is meaningful for decision-makers.

Policy measures for economic resilience of Visegrad Group and Ukraine during the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented healthcare and economic resilience challenges for the world. This study systematizes the policy measures taken by the Visegrad Group and Ukraine to support national economies in response to the pandemic. The paper is based on a grouping method to systematize the policy measures, and a tabular method to present the results of the policy measures classification. Following systematization results, the policy measures for ensuring the economic resilience under the pandemic are classified as quarantine and compensatory measures. Additionally, quarantine measures were classified into prohibitions, restrictions, and recommendations. Compensatory measures were classified by the type of policy and grouped according to the global dimension in periodization of the COVID-19 waves. The analysis of quarantine measures in Ukraine and Visegrad Group also shows that prohibitions had been used most frequently and for the longest time in Ukraine, particularly they included school closures, public transport closing, and restrictions on internal movement. Meanwhile, fiscal, macroprudential, and microprudential measures prevailed among the compensatory measures. Simultaneously, 38% of all fiscal measures were direct grants to households and enterprises. The largest number of various measures (78) were implemented in Poland, linking quarantine and compensatory measures. The least compensatory measures were implemented in Ukraine (19) and Slovakia (15). Overall, policy measures helped to avoid a worse scenario of pandemic impact but did not help to overcome the effects of the pandemic fully.

Resilience Analysis of Australian Electricity and Gas Transmission Networks

Given they are two critical infrastructure areas, the security of electricity and gas networks is highly important due to potential multifaceted social and economic impacts. Unexpected errors or sabotage can lead to blackouts, causing a significant loss for the public, businesses, and governments. Climate change and an increasing number of consequent natural disasters (e.g., bushfires and floods) are other emerging network resilience challenges. In this paper, we used network science to examine the topological resilience of national energy networks with two case studies of Australian gas and electricity networks. To measure the fragility and resilience of these energy networks, we assessed various topological features and theories of percolation. We found that both networks follow the degree distribution of power-law and the characteristics of a scale-free network. Then, using these models, we conducted node and edge removal experiments. The analysis identified the most critical nodes that can trigger cascading failure within the network upon a fault. The analysis results can be used by the network operators to improve network resilience through various mitigation strategies implemented on the identified critical nodes.

Editor‐in‐Chief's Letter

As stated in our website, the Journal is focused on “addressing the security and resiliency threats faced by US critical infrastructure sectors and the corresponding resiliency challenges of jurisdictions that rely on these infrastructures . . . each sect

Farm characteristics affecting antibiotic consumption in pig farms in England

BackgroundPig production has been highlighted as one of the highest users of antibiotics amongst livestock, with several studies suggesting a variety of approaches to antibiotic reduction. We aimed to investigate links between antibiotic use (defined as total amount of critically (CIA) and non-critically important antibiotics, and as mg per kg of pig on farm), production stages present on farm (Breeder–Finisher, Nursery–Finisher, and Finisher), and pig farm characteristics using farm data collected through national recording systems in Great Britain for 2017 & 2018. Providing enrichment within pig pens may reduce the need for antibiotics by enhancing both pig welfare and resilience to infection; this was one of the hypotheses addressed by this paper.ResultsThe amount of antibiotic used, expressed as mg/kg, reduced between 2017 and 2018 for Breeder–Finisher farms, but not for Nursery–Finisher or Finisher farms. Breeder–Finisher farms were more likely to use CIA compared with other production stages. Larger farms were more likely to use CIA, but farm size had no effect on mg/kg of antibiotic used. As the proportion of pens containing straw increased, the total use of antibiotics decreased for Breeder–Finisher, but not for Nursery–Finisher or Finisher farms. As the proportion of pens containing straw increased, the probability of using CIAs also decreased. Farms with a higher proportion of finisher pens with an outdoor space had a lower use of non-critical antibiotics and lower probability of use of CIA. Farms with a higher proportion of pens with automatically controlled natural ventilation (ACNV) had lower total use of antibiotics, although ACNV had no effect on the probability of using CIA.ConclusionsWe quantified the influence of farm characteristics on the consumption of antibiotics in pig farms in England. Our findings support the hypothesis that farm characteristics have an influence on antibiotic use within a system and suggest that this reflects the balance of effects on both animal resilience and disease challenge. Consistent with our hypothesis, provision of straw was associated with reduced antibiotic use. We also demonstrate the value of using secondary databases, although further structural improvements are required to facilitate effective database combination and ensure maximum information benefits can be realised.

Opportunities and challenges for livelihood resilience in urban and rural Mexican small-scale fisheries

Most small-scale fisheries (SSFs) in the developing world are exploited by rural communities, but global trends in coastal urbanization and development are rapidly transforming many SSF landscapes. The implications for livelihood resilience, or the capacity of a livelihood to overcome shocks and stresses, remain unknown. The environmental and economic shocks and stresses experienced by SSF communities are becoming more frequent and severe, highlighting the urgent need to understand how urban and rural SSF contexts influence how fishers build livelihood resilience. To shed light on this issue, we performed a systematic review of the Mexican SSF literature to compare constructions of livelihood resilience across urban and rural communities. Our findings suggest that attributes innate to urbanness and ruralness may influence how these communities and individuals build livelihood resilience. Specifically, our results suggest that population density, isolation, and the diversity of jobs available are associated with several indicator variables for livelihood resilience. Moreover, we find that the greatest threats to livelihood resilience in urban communities are weak incentives to cooperate and threats to ecosystems, while the greatest opportunities to achieve livelihood resilience are easier access to education and ample prospects for additional employment outside the fishing sector. In contrast, livelihood resilience in rural communities is most threatened by the relatively fewer opportunities for education and additional employment, but benefits from strong incentives to cooperate. Efforts to bolster livelihood resilience within SSF communities would benefit from considering these different opportunities and challenges presented by urban and rural contexts.

Compounding challenges for disaster resilience in small island developing states

No country will escape the ravages of climate change, but some, like small island developing states (SIDS), will be less able to withstand them. Their fundamental characteristics in essential domains pose existential threats for them. The paper borrows from Lukka and Vinnari’s work on domain and method theories as a lens to conceptually explore the question, “Is it possible for SIDS to become disaster resilient?” It turns out that SIDS might be too small, too isolated, too economically and institutionally weak, and too exposed to become disaster resilient. Their developmental state, economic, institutional, and community attributes are causes of significant vulnerabilities and undermine disaster resilience efforts. The challenges from climate change alone highlight the herculean task ahead for these small and tiny developing islands without transformative actions. The advantage for SIDS is their solid social system. Their populations are resourceful, and they can pivot if they need to. However, the lingering question remains whether that will be enough to mitigate the weaknesses in other critical resilience domains?

Youth and the Regional Future in SEE. Are We Ready to Meet the Challenge?

The paper outlines the youth profile in four SEE countries – Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, and Slovenia by indicators that impact regional growth and resilience challenges. It contains an overview of the literature that relates growth, regional resilience and youth. The idea is to identify some directions to how youth, with their current vision for values and participation, can shape the socio-economic life of a region. The authors are using secondary data from previous research of Friedrich Ebert Foundation to interpret the youngsters' profiles via regional development perspective and socioeconomic significance.

Systemic Perspectives on National Infrastructure for a Sustainable, Resilient Net Zero Future

All aspects of Modern life are infrastructure-enabled. National infrastructure (NI) simultaneously: supports the realisation of societally beneficial outcomes; and determines the level of GHG emissions; air, water, noise pollution; production of solid waste and sewage. Therefore, all sustainability and resilience challenges are interdependent emergent properties arising directly or indirectly from National Infrastructure. NI is a systemically, societally, economically, globally significant leverage point. The systemic transformation of NI into a net zero enabling, resilience enhancing, sustainability supporting system is urgently needed to catalyse the speed, scale and breadth of synergistic action needed to achieve Net zero and tackle other sustainability and resilience challenges. Systemic perspectives on, and systemic characterisations of, NI; its societal purpose; and the interdependent mechanisms that enable NI to fulfil its purpose are needed to support the required systemic transformation. This paper provides these.

Early Adversity and Development: Parsing Heterogeneity and Identifying Pathways of Risk and Resilience.

Adversity early in life is common and is a major risk factor for the onset of psychopathology. Delineating the neurodevelopmental pathways by which early adversity affects mental health is critical for early risk identification and targeted treatment approaches. A rapidly growing cross-species literature has facilitated advances in identifying the mechanisms linking adversity with psychopathology, specific dimensions of adversity and timing-related factors that differentially relate to outcomes, and protective factors that buffer against the effects of adversity. Yet, vast complexity and heterogeneity in early environments and neurodevelopmental trajectories contribute to the challenges of understanding risk and resilience in the context of early adversity. In this overview, the author highlights progress in four major areas-mechanisms, heterogeneity, developmental timing, and protective factors; synthesizes key challenges; and provides recommendations for future research that can facilitate progress in the field. Translation across species and ongoing refinement of conceptual models have strong potential to inform prevention and intervention strategies that can reduce the immense burden of psychopathology associated with early adversity.

Nature-Based Solutions for Urban Climate Change Adaptation and Wellbeing: Evidence and Opportunities From Kiribati, Samoa, and Vanuatu

Climate change and urbanisation in combination put great pressure on terrestrial and ocean ecosystems, vital for subsistence and wellbeing in both rural and urban areas of Pacific islands. Adaptation is urgently required. Nature-based solutions (NbS) offer great potential, with the region increasingly implementing NbS and linked approaches like ecosystem-based adaptation in response. This paper utilises three Pacific island nation case-studies, Kiribati, Samoa and Vanuatu, to review current NbS approaches to adapt and mitigate the converging resilience challenges of climate change and urbanisation. We look at associated government policies, current NbS experience, and offer insights into opportunities for future work with focus on urban areas. These three Pacific island case-studies showcase their rich cultural and biological diversity and, importantly, the role of traditional ecological knowledge in shaping localised, place-based, NbS for climate change adaptation and enhanced wellbeing. But gaps in knowledge, policy, and practice remain. There is great potential for a nature-based urban design agenda positioned within an urban ecosystems framework linked closely to Indigenous understandings of wellbeing.