Grounding urban resilience through transdisciplinary risk mapping

During 2015, three key global agreements were established which converged on enhancing resilience as an overall strategy towards sustainable development. This paper builds an argument and a structured process for future research and practice that succinctly links urban resilience enhancement with the transdisciplinary development of risk maps. Risk maps are highlighted as useful tools improving a shared understanding of risk, raising awareness, and effectively guiding land use planning and zoning towards enhanced urban resilience. Building codes incorporating past and recent disaster experiences, and multi-hazard maps with high-quality data for different performance levels, should be the foundation of transdisciplinary risk mapping.

The author makes the following recommendations:

• Develop a long-term vision for better guidance of innovative actions in response to global challenges.
• Make more substantial investments in prevention efforts supported by robust risk reduction strategies.
• Encourage transdisciplinary development of risk maps to enhance the effectiveness of risk reduction strategies.
• Ensure more frequent updating of building codes underpinning risk maps.