5th International Conference on Building Resilience
Exploring the concept of resilience as a useful framework of analysis for how society can cope with the threat of natural and human induced hazards
The risks and vulnerabilities exposed by natural hazards and disasters are on the rise globally, and the impacts are severe and widespread: extensive loss of life, particularly among vulnerable members of a community; economic losses, hindering development goals; destruction of the built and natural environment, further increasing vulnerability; and, widespread disruption to local institutions and livelihoods, disempowering the local community. Rising population and infrastructures, particularly in urban areas, has significantly increased disaster risk, amplified the degree of uncertainty, challenged emergency arrangements and raised issues regarding their appropriateness.
What is becoming equally apparent, however, is the importance of resilience - not only in the structures that humans design and build, but in the way society perceives, copes with, and reshapes lives after the worst has happened: to use change to better cope with the unknown.
Despite resilience having been widely adopted in research, policy and practice to describe the way in which they would like to reduce our society's susceptibility to the threat posed by such hazards, there is little consensus regarding what resilience is, what it means to society, and perhaps most importantly, how societies might achieve greater resilience in the face of increasing threats from natural and human induced hazards.