Community Resilience to Climate Change: Theory, Research and Practice

172 practices, in spite of developmental and intergovernmental challenges. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK Urban disaster risk and vulnerability The vulnerability of people to disasters is increasing progressively, and, if left unchecked, will augment the local disaster risk burden of the world’s urban poor (Laukkonen et al. 2009). An urban risk divide is developing in cities as they become increasingly unjust, polarised, divided and fragmented: the well-connected elite barricade themselves in well-serviced and regulated high-security villages (Todes 2011:116; Watson 2005:286), whilst some communities struggle to survive along the fault lines of urban risk (IFRC 2010:8). The poor are largely ‘priced out’ of safe areas and are concentrated in severely vulnerable and unsafe spaces –most often in informal settlements that are low-lying or steeply-sloping, flood-prone, close to pollution sources, often at highest risk of fire and disease, cauldrons of social tension and crime, with inadequate or non-existent services, and lack of protection from extreme climatic events (Parnell et al. 2007; Pelling & Wisner 2009). Hazards interact with each other to produce compound hybrid hazards, and as everyday disaster risk grows, it undermines the coping capacities of communities. Each succeeding event erodes the resources of a household to cope with and recover in time for the next shock, resulting in a ‘ratchet effect’ of vulnerability (Faling 2012; Freeman et al. 2002:5; Laukkonen et al. 2009:287; Parnell et al. 2007:357, 361; Pelling 2003:16; Pelling & Wisner 2009:4). It is clear that addressing urban disaster risk and vulnerability is critical in protecting the lives and livelihoods of people, as well as the infrastructure and development gain. Resilience offers a perspective on reducing disasters and everyday risks, as well as making people and places more robust and adaptable to changes and shocks. Resilient cities ‘Cities are among humankind’s most durable artefacts’ (Vale & Campanella 2005a:5). Resilience is perhaps a new metaphor to many disciplines, being used to describe and frame a counter-response to threat, but resilience has always preoccupied the inhabitants of cities as they sought to defend and secure their interests. The rise of resilience is ascribed to a growth in political action against a number of perceived threats and events such as climate change-related events, disease pandemics and global terrorism (Coaffee, Wood & Rogers 2009:1; Todes, 2011:118). C.S. Hollings introduced the term ‘resilience’ for the first time in 1973 as applied to the analysis of ecosystems. It emerged as a concept in ecosystems theory to explain how ecological systems cope with external shocks, or how to interpret their stability (Coaffee 2009:85; Ernstson 2008:17). Ecological resilience was defined as ‘the amount of disturbance that an ecosystem could withstand without changing self-organized processes and structures’ (Coaffee et al. 2009:112). The range of application of the term resilience has since then broadened in both theory and research. In recent years resilience has become a transdisciplinary concept that integrates socio- political and physical aspects (Coaffee 2009:87) and is becoming a common frame for the policy goals of socio-ecological systems – such as cities (Coaffee et al. 2009:114; Hamin & Guran 2009:239). Resilience as a concept has its critics though: it is seen by some as merely aspiring to return to the situation before the shock, with no aspirations for transforming society, and therefore only benefitting some and not those most at risk (Pelling 2011). Resilience is popularly understood as the capacity to accommodate, absorb, bounce back from, or adapt to some kind of perturbation (Hamin & Guran 2009:239; Vale & Campanella 2005b:335; World Bank 2008:32). If resilient, a systemhas a degree of elasticity, allowing it to withstand a shock and reorganise itself when necessary (World Bank 2008:32) and is thus forgiving of external shocks (Hamin & Guran 2009:239). Resilience is indicated by the continuation of particular functions at an acceptable level (Pelling 2011:42). Moreover, it includes the ability to learn by continuously adapting to the constantly changing risks and vulnerabilities (Collins 2009:106; Hamin & Guran 2009:239). The goals of a disaster-resilient city need to be built into the everyday practices of urban planning (Coaffee 2009:87). However, urban planning, particularly in the developing world, has so far played a limited role in consciously reducing vulnerability to disasters or everyday risks; and disaster resilience is little understood (Biesbroek, Swart & Van der Knaap 2009). The International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) sums up the reason for the lack of action: ‘[W]hile the changing nature of disaster risk is well analyzed and increasingly addressed at international and national levels of debate and decision-making, efforts to provide direct and practical guidance to local government policy-makers and planners on how to reduce exposure and increase resilience to disasters have been few’. (ICLEI 2010:1) Because disaster resilience is not made practical, planning practices are often unsustainable – in fact, our everyday decisions could even increase people’s exposure to risks and hazards, as opposed to building resilience (Pelling 2003). Most planners would agree that building disaster-resilient cities is of great consequence, but many countries in the developing world,