p.101 This paper explores the concept of resilience in the context of coastal megacities, and particularly
explores its value and utility in the context of hazard management and reduction.
p.109 In general, proactive adaptation is aimed at reducing a system's vulnerability by either minimizing
risk or maximizing adaptive capacity. Five generic objectives of anticipatory adaptation can be identified (Klein
and Tol 1997; Klein 2002 forthcoming):
- Increasing robustness of infrastructural designs and long-term investments...
- Increasing flexibility of vulnerable managed systems...
- Enhancing adaptability of vulnerable natural systems...
- Reversing trends that increase vulnerability...
- Improving societal awareness and preparedness...
p.109 three basic hazard management strategies:
- Protect...
- Retreat...
- Accomodate...
p.110 Another key point about the effective implementation of hazard reduction strategies is that they are
more than implementing a set of technical measures and need to be thought of as an ongoing process, including planning, design,
implementation, and monitoring (Klein and others 1999; 2001). ... Given that we are discussing a process, and there is a great
deal of uncertainty about the future, one approach that is increasingly advocated is adaptive management, or learning
by doing... it proposes that any interaction should be treated as an experiment from which lessons should
be drawn and future interventions made using these lessons.
p.112 It is argued by many ecologists that resilience is the key to sustainable ecosystem management
p.113 The Resilience Alliance consistently refers to social-ecological systems and defines their resilience
by considering three distinct dimensions (Carpenter and others 2001):
• The amount of disturbance a system can absorb
and still remain within the same state or domain of attraction;
• The degree to which the system is capable of self-organization;
and
• The degree to which the system can build and increase the capacity for learning and adaptation.
p.113 The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR 2002a) uses the term resilience
as follows:
The capacity of a system, community or society to resist or to change in order that it may
obtain an acceptable level in functioning and structure. This is determined by the degree to which the social system is capable
of organising itself and the ability to increase its capacity for learning and adaption, including the capacity to recover
from a disaster.
p.116 Based on the present knowledge, the authors feel that the definition of resilience is best used to
define specific system attributes, particularly:
- The amount of disturbance a system can absorb and still remain within the same state or domain of attraction;
and
- The degree to which the system is capable of self-organization.
These specific attributes are more amenable to measurement and monitoring, although questions about the relationship
between natural system and social system resilience remain to be fully explored.
In this conceptual framework, resilience is one property that contributes to the overall
adaptive capacity of the system in question.
