Resilience Science Research Articles

Resilience in the Context of Development: Introduction to the Special Issue

As an introduction to this special issue, we define resilience as the capacity of a dynamic system to adapt successfully to threatening circumstances, and we briefly note the history of resilience studies as embedded within the broader field of developmental science. We then elaborate on four developmental principles central for the study of resilience and highlight the importance of early adolescence as a developmental period of particular opportunity for change. Finally, we introduce the five articles of this special issue, each of which presents exciting new work on resilience processes during early adolescence and speaks to aspects of core developmental principles of resilience science.

Special Issue on NIED Frontier Research on Science and Technology for Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience 2018

The National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience (NIED) is working on three tasks: predicting disasters, preventing damage, and realizing speedy reconstruction and recovery efforts in the event of natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, landslides, torrential rains, blizzards, and ice storms. In the last two years of the NIED’s fourth mid/long term plan period, which began in 2016, the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake (M6.5 and M7.3), the heavy rainfall in the Northern Kyushu District in July 2017, and the heavy rain event of July 2018 are listed as “named” disasters, named by Japan Meteorological Agency. In addition, there were other disasters: an avalanche accident on Nasudake in 2017, an earthquake (M6.1) with its epicenter in northern Osaka, an eruption of Kirishimayama (Shinmoedake and Ioyama) and a phreatic eruption of Kusatsu-Shiranesan in 2018. The results of research done on the above-mentioned disasters and the latest results of ongoing projects in each research division and center were compiled as the second NIED special issue of the Journal of Disaster Research (JDR). In this special issue, we are delighted to present ten papers on three topics: climatic disasters, seismic disasters, and integrated research on disaster risk reduction. In particular, this special issue contains three papers on the above-mentioned heavy rainfall in the Northern Kyushu District in July 2017 and two papers related to the Kumamoto earthquake. Although the achievements detailed in these papers are the results of individual research, the NIED hopes that these results as a whole will be fully utilized to promote science and technology for disaster risk reduction and resilience. The NIED hopes that this special issue awakens the readers’ interest in new research and, of course, creates an opportunity for further collaborative works with us.

The End of the Beginning: Evidence and Absences Studying Positive Youth Development in a Global Context

Relational developmental systems metatheory frames many contemporary models of human development, including two strengths-based approaches to enhancing the lives of diverse children and adolescents, the positive youth development (PYD) perspective and resilience science. Both approaches emphasize the potential for plasticity in human development, and the systematic changes that arise through mutually influential relations between the individual and the multiple, integrated levels of the dynamic developmental system. After discussing the similarities and differences in these two approaches, different models of PYD are discussed in relation to how descriptions, explanations, and attempts at optimizations of the development of diverse youth are enacted within these conceptions. The substantive and research challenges associated using PYD models to enhance the lives of diverse global youth are highlighted, and the implications for future PYD research in international settings, and specifically among poor youth developing within the majority world, are discussed.

Can Resilience Thinking Be Integrated into the Strategic Environmental Assessment Process?

This commentary discusses strategic environmental assessment (SEA) in the context of global environmental change and presents a brief overview of the science of social-ecological systems and the resilience thinking and practices that result from it. Resilience thinking and assessment have the potential to make a significant contribution to SEA, if SEA is applied (as intended) as a proactive tool for assessing development sustainability during the process of making plans, policies, and programs. So far, there is little indication that social-ecological system (SES) resilience ideas are being applied to SEA, and from a complex systems perspective, it seems that cognitive and social biases may be the primary barriers to both the improvement of SEA practice and the application of SES resilience science to SEA practice. Resilience thinking can be integrated into SEA, provided that leadership in the SEA community can create a social movement for change in practice and the policies that affect SEA procedures. Principles of complexity, uncertainty, self-organization, and cooperative problem solving may be the most important cognitive barriers to change and can be overcome through education and a learning-by-doing approach to the application of resilience assessment when appropriate in a SEA process. A deliberate change process can be undertaken in an action research approach that monitors and adapts the process according to the lessons learned in practice. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2018;14:571-577. © 2018 SETAC.

Resilience in Children: Developmental Perspectives.

Advances in developmental resilience science are highlighted with commentary on implications for pediatric systems that aspire to promote healthy development over the life course. Resilience science is surging along with growing concerns about the consequences of adverse childhood experiences on lifelong development. Resilience is defined as the capacity of a system to adapt successfully to challenges that threaten the function, survival, or future development of the system. This definition is scalable across system levels and across disciplines, applicable to resilience in a person, a family, a health care system, a community, an economy, or other systems. Robust findings on resilience in childhood underscore the importance of exposure dose; fundamental adaptive systems embedded in the lives of individuals and their interactions with other systems; developmental timing; and the crucial role of healthcare practitioners and educators as well as family caregivers in nurturing resilience on the “front lines” of lived childhood experience. Resilience science suggests that human resilience is common, dynamic, generated through myriad interactions of multiple systems from the biological to the sociocultural, and mutable given strategic targeting and timing. Implications for pediatric practice and training are discussed.

PISA 2015. ¿Cuáles fueron los aportes para la Argentina?

El presente artículo presenta algunos hallazgos delos resultados del Programa para la Evaluación Internacionalde Estudiantes (PISA), coordinado porla Organización para la Cooperación y el DesarrolloEconómico (OCDE). En el Estudio PISA2015 se hace foco en los desempeños escolares delas áreas de Ciencias, Lengua y Matemática de losestudiantes argentinos, las perspectivas de género,resiliencia y repitencia. Se propone un estudio detipo exploratorio-descriptivo en el contexto local,con el propósito de visibilizar procesos y tensionesdentro de una práctica que requiere de múltiplesdiscusiones públicas y miradas reflexivas.

Hindcasting community-level building damage for the 2011 Joplin EF5 tornado

Resiliency of communities prone to natural hazards can be enhanced through the use of risk-informed decision-making tools. These tools can provide community decision makers key information, thereby providing them the ability to consider an array of mitigation and/or recovery strategies. The Center for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning, headquartered at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, developed an Interdependent Networked Community Resilience (IN-CORE) computational environment. The purpose of developing this computational environment is to build a decision-support system, for professional risk planners and emergency responders, but even more focused on allowing researchers to explore community resilience science. The eventual goal was being to integrate a broad range of scientific, engineering and observational data to produce a detailed assessment of the potential impact of natural and man-made hazards for risk mitigation, planning and recovery purposes. The developing computational environment will be capable of simulating the effects from different natural hazards on the physical and socioeconomic sectors of a community, accounting for interdependencies between the sectors. However, in order to validate this computational tool, hindcasting of a real event was deemed necessary. Therefore, in this study, the community of Joplin, Missouri in the USA, which was hit by an EF-5 tornado on May 22, 2011, is modeled in the IN-CORE v1.0 computational environment. An explanation of the algorithm used within IN-CORE is also provided. This tornado was the costliest and deadliest single tornado in the USA in the last half century. Using IN-CORE, by uploading a detailed topological dataset of the community and the estimated tornado path combined with recently developed physics-based tornado fragilities, the damage caused by the tornado to all buildings in the city of Joplin was estimated. The results were compared with the damage reported from field studies following the event. This damage assessment was done using three hypothetical idealized tornado scenarios, and results show very good correlation with observed damage which will provide useful information to decision makers for community resilience planning.

Resilience science, policy and investment for civil infrastructure

The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season resulted in nearly US $200 billion in disruption across the Caribbean and several US states. Several seeming knockout blows to communities will challenge the wisdom and affordability of resilience paradigms that have shaped policy and investment for civil works since Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy. With extensive involvement of the public and lawmakers, mid-Atlantic US cities, New Orleans, and nearby coastal communities ultimately, and mostly successfully, opted to use pre-2005 civil works as the blueprint for future investment. Should options of returning to pre-event normalcy be considered for these latest devastated communities? What would gain and what will suffer? While there is continuing priority and commitment for infrastructure systems to be resilient, the theory, science and methodologies to do so will certainly be tested by recent events. Adoption of a resilience strategy by government agencies requires the wisdom of the emerging science of resilience as never before. We describe economic motivations for implementing resilience assessment and management in damaged communities and large scale complex systems. We describe the latest understood principles of resilience that drive a decision framework. We call for examination of risk-based policymaking and investment decisions by the science of resilience.

The science of resilience: What are the ingredients that help people cope?

The science of resilience: What are the ingredients that help people cope?

Resilience Theory and Research on Children and Families: Past, Present, and Promise

AbstractOrigins and advances in the history of resilience science with children and families are highlighted in this article, with a focus on interconnections and integration. Individual and family resilience scholarship reflect interwoven roots, and there is a growing impetus to integrate knowledge and strategies to inform practice and policies to mitigate risk and promote resilience in systems that shape human adaptation over the life course. Resilience is defined as the capacity of a system to adapt successfully to significant challenges that threaten its function, viability, or development. Research evidence is summarized to illustrate parallels in concepts and findings from studies of child and family resilience, with special emphasis on parenting processes. Integrating models, findings, methods, and training across multiple systems and levels holds great promise for elucidating resilience processes that will inform efforts to build capacity for healthy adaptation in the face of rising threats to families and societies around the world.

韧性科学的回顾与展望:从生态理论到城市实践

韧性科学的回顾与展望:从生态理论到城市实践

Exploring the science of resilience: critical review and bibliometric analysis

The concept of resilience has experienced extraordinary development since the 1970s. Resilience is now an integral part of human society and has become a hot topic in different research domains. As an interdisciplinary discipline, resilience science is supported by multidisciplinary knowledge. Although research and practical work of resilience have been developed significantly, it is still unclear that how far resilience science has been progressed as a scientific discipline. In order to reveal the connotation and knowledge structure of resilience science, we systematically reviewed classic publications on resilience and compared its definitions and related research in different discipline domains. The evolution trend of resilience science was quantitatively analyzed to identify its knowledge foundation, geographic distribution, academic community, and collaboration structure. This analysis revealed the knowledge structure and development path of resilience science for future researchers. The results showed that the publications of resilience have been explosively increased since the 2000s. The developed countries made sound contributions to the research of resilience science, and China also presents a significant growth trend in this area. The collaborative relationship is becoming closer across research institutions and scholars. The research topics of resilience have been changing in the latest 30 years. The results reveal important highlights and future research directions of resilience science on academic domains including definition of resilience, measurement methods of network resilience, and mechanisms to forming resilient status. Moreover, this study will help researchers in resilience science for future collaboration and work.

Special Issue on NIED Frontier Researches on Science and Technology for Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience 2017

In April 2016, our institute, NIED, under its new English name the “National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience,” commenced its fourth mid-to-long term planning period, set to last seven years. We are constantly required to carry out comprehensive efforts, including observations, forecasts, experiments, assessments, and countermeasures related to a variety of natural disasters, including earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, landslides, heavy rains, blizzards, and ice storms. Since this is NIED’s first special issue for the Journal of Disaster Research (JDR), works were collected on a wide variety of topics from research divisions and centers as well as from ongoing projects in order to give an overview of the latest achievements of the institute. We are delighted to present 17 papers on five topics: seismic disasters, volcanic disasters, climatic disasters, landslide disasters, and the development of comprehensive Information Communications Technology (ICT) for disaster management. Even though the achievements detailed in these papers are certainly the results individual research, NIED hopes to maximize these achievements for the promotion of science and technology for disaster risk reduction and resilience as a whole. It is our hope that this special issue awakens the readers’ interest in a study, and, of course, creates an opportunity for further collaborative works with us.

Toward psychosocial health in age-friendly communities: The fountain of health peer-led education series

BackgroundThe Fountain of Health (FoH) Initiative translates evidence-based science of brain health and resilience to the public with the goal of increasing awareness about optimal aging and promoting positive self-perceptions of aging, as well as preventing dementia, late life mental illnesses and supporting psychological health and development later in life, in alignment with Age-Friendly Communities principles. MethodsThis was an observational study. Five peer-led education series about brain health and resilience were offered to community-dwelling seniors in Nova Scotia, Canada. Each series lasted six weeks, 90-minutes per session. Outcome measures included a pre and post quality assurance self-report questionnaire for group participants, and a self-report questionnaire completed by group facilitators. ResultsFifty-one participants attended six group sessions run in five different series. All (100%) completed the pre- and 27 (52.9%) the post-series questionnaire. Highly significant (p<0.001) improvements in knowledge of the FoH, application of FoH information, and knowledge of evidence-based lifestyle interventions were observed. There was also significant (p<0.05) improvement in attitudes toward aging, knowledge on the impact of genetics on longevity, and increased confidence in goal setting ability. ConclusionsThe FoH peer-led educational series appears to be a useful health promotion program aligned with Age Friendly Communities. Larger studies are needed to further assess the impact of such an approach on behavior change and long-term impacts on longevity and quality of life.

Special Issue on Resilience Science and Resilience Engineering to Enhance Resilience in Shikoku Region of Japan

Japan has one of the highest levels of seismicity in the world. In the last few decades, Japan has been the site of many destructive earthquakes, such as the 1995 Kobe earthquake, 2003 Tokachi-oki earthquake, 2004 Chuetsu earthquake, 2007 Chuetsu-oki earthquake, and 2016 Kumamoto earthquake/Tottori-chubu earthquakes. Furthermore, we need to take disaster mitigation countermeasures in preparation for the next Nankai Trough megathrust earthquake, Tokyo earthquake, etc. Disaster countermeasures against these earthquakes will be of vital importance to Japanese society in the future. As a specific example, if and when the next Nankai Trough megathrust earthquake strikes, it will cause widespread and compound disasters on the island of Shikoku and in southwestern Japan in general. The prefectures of Kagawa, Tokushima, Kochi, and Ehime are all on the island of Shikoku, yet the damages that a future Nankai Trough megathrust earthquake will cause are predicted to be quite different in each prefecture. Therefore, in preparing disaster mitigation strategies for the coming Nankai Trough megathrust earthquake, these four prefectures and the distinguished universities involved in disaster mitigation research and education in them must be united in collaboration while making the best use of the individual characteristics of the prefectures and universities. Specifically, in terms of disaster mitigation preparations, universities on Shikoku have to develop and advance resilience science as it relates to upcoming disasters from a Nankai Trough megathrust earthquake, inland earthquakes, typhoons, floods, etc. In this special issue, many significant research papers from the fields of engineering, geoscience, and the social sciences by researchers from distinguished universities on the island of Shikoku focus on resilience science. We must apply their findings to society, putting them into practice to mitigate potential damages from any future natural events.

Towards a science and practice of resilience in the face of pain.

The resilience approach put forward in this review spotlights sustainability of positive outcomes (e.g. engagement in meaningful activities) in the presence of pain as an outcome to pursue beyond recovery of negative outcomes. We illuminate the evidence-base and practical application of promising resilience mechanisms (positive emotions, psychological flexibility, needs satisfaction). For this article, a commentary is available at the Wiley Online Library.

Blending science and community voices for multi-scale disaster risk reduction and climate resilience: a participatory scenario planning approach

Climate change is a major development challenge to Ethiopia. Unless adaptation measures are widely implemented, climate change can set back development efforts and achievements by years. Recognizing this, the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) and civil society organizations have since recently been making considerable efforts to tackle the climate change problem. This paper documents the experience of CARE International in Ethiopia in facilitating bottom-up approaches to promote community-led disaster risk management and climate change adaptation planning through a participator scenario planning (PSP) methodology. PSP is a coordinated approach which leverages a variety of stakeholders' skills and mandates to explore potential climate change risks and their impacts, and then develop locally relevant and shared adaptation action plans that support livelihoods, social capital and ecosystem resilience. The approach has facilitated timely access to and communication of seasonal climate advisories which in turn is empowering communities to take advantage of opportunities that climate presents, which is a key part of adapting to climate change. The institutionalization of the approach by district and regional disaster prevention and food security coordination offices in the southern pastoral regions of Ethiopia encouraged integration of PSP into community livelihood adaptation and local government development planning, hence continuity of the process. Sustainability is expected to be fully achieved when local government planning processes recognize the importance of and provides resources for the participation of meteorological services and community forecasting experts to help refine plans on a seasonal basis, and for systems for dissemination of advisories. Key Words: Climate change, Disaster risk management, Pastoralism, Participatory scenario planning

Affect of Adversity Quotient on the Occupational Stress of IT Managers in India

All people experience adversity during their lifetime. Dictionary defines adversity as a difficult or unlucky situation or event. Challenges, disappointments, sadness, despair and hopelessness are difficult parts of life, making people react in peculiar ways to get over these. Each person’s happiness, growth and success depend largely on his or her responses to the difficulties of life. The science of resilience or the adversity quotient (AQ) is a measure of the capability of an individual in facing the difficult situations in life. Dr. Paul Stoltz coined the term Adversity Quotient in 1997 in his book ‘Adversity Quotient: Turning Obstacles Into Opportunities’1. Stress is a result of an adverse or difficult or demanding situation which has psychological or emotional tension or pressure on an individual. Stress can be caused by a string of things, from physical like some threat or danger to emotional such as tension or worry at job or for family. Occupational stress is caused by unfavourable conditions at the work place. These conditions may be related to the organizational policies such as downsizing or re-designing leading to fear of job-loss, politics among the co-workers, excessive demanding supervisors, overload of work leading to burnout or lack of coordination among the teams causing bottlenecks and unnecessary delays. Such stress is even higher among the IT professionals, often leading to unpleasant and explosive situations. This research is an attempt to uncover if there exists any link among the Adversity Quotient and Occupational Stress of IT managers in India. Results indicate that there is a significant relationship between Adversity Quotient and Occupational Stress.

Resilience in the Context of Ambiguous Loss: A Commentary

AbstractThis commentary compares the concept of resilience as conceptualized and studied in ambiguous loss and in the broader domain of developmental resilience science. The discussion highlights common roots, similarities and differences in the definitions of resilience and protective processes, and implications for interventions. Resilience concepts in ambiguous loss theory are congruent with contemporary developmental resilience theory in multiple ways. Future research and practice would benefit from further integration of these compatible perspectives on resilience.

A Way Forward for Spirituality, Resilience, and International Social Science

This special issue on spirituality in resilience processes across international contexts helps clarify a three-pronged research agenda for the future study of trauma and disasters by psychologists of religion and spirituality. First, the special issue demonstrates the value of expanding from U.S.-based theories, data, models, and practices to incorporate a wider repertoire of international research (e.g., Western Africa, Romania, Haiti, China, and diverse additional contexts). Second, the special issue suggests that the topic of resilience defies the constraints of traditional variance-based research methodologies and requires the adoption of newer process-based research methodologies in order to study longitudinal phenomena, such as cosmology episodes, post-traumatic growth, and forgiveness processes. Third, the special issue emphasizes the need for psychologists of religion and spirituality to collaborate more frequently with allied social scientists (e.g., sociologists of religion and scholars of management, spirituality and religion) in order to comprehend the systemic, multilevel complexities of large-scale trauma.