Contributing to Disaster Resilience: Understanding the City Resilience Framework
In 2007 for the first time ever, over 50 percent of the world's population lived in urban areas. This number is predicted to increase to 70% by the year 2050. Cities are the cultural and economic hubs of our globally connected communities. Cities play an important role in facilitating connections and concentrating ideas and resources. However, the vulnerability of cities to disaster events is often overlooked.
Across Africa many major cities are located on beautiful coastlines and along the banks of life-giving rivers and delta networks. Although this is great for lifestyles and picturesque real estate, the geographical location of population centres increases the number of people that may be impacted in extreme weather events such as floods, tropical storms and king tides. Since the beginning of 2021, flooding has affected 669,000 people in West and Central Africa, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gambia, Niger, Chad, Nigeria, Togo, the Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, and Ghana. Heavy rainfalls, floods, and windstorms killed 192 people, injured 300, displaced 70,350, and destroyed 77,000 houses.
On the other hand, drought is a long standing issue for the continent. Climate change has exacerbated dry weather patterns which have culminated in some of the most severe droughts seen in living memory. The Cape Town water crisis made headlines across the world in 2018. The city grappled with strict water restrictions and the reality that there may be a ‘day zero’ when fresh water was no longer available. For Cape Town itself, Day Zero hasn’t disappeared, it’s merely been delayed.
These areas were traditionally places that could support human life, however climate change has begun to exacerbate the vulnerabilities of these cities, and in these high density population hubs the risks posed from a range of hazards have the potential to cause widespread destruction.
Arup, with support from The Rockefeller Foundation created the 100 resilient cities (100RC) project in 2013 and published the City Resilience Framework (CRF) in 2015. The framework provides a lens from which to assess resilience in an urban context. This can be applied by council and business to share in the responsibility of building community resilience and safety nets in the face of disaster.
The foundation identified 3 major trends in risk: urbanisation, globalisation and climate change. The framework was created as a response to the challenges climate change poses for cities which not only increases resilience to disasters it also aims to mitigate further environmental degradation.
It is important to define terms in this space and the definition of resilience laid out in the CRF is a strength in itself as it includes specific reference to the fact that cities are not filled with homogeneous populations. Many intersectionalities, inequalities and vulnerabilities exist within cities and the way that this is included in the definition sets the tone for the rest of the framework.
“City resilience describes the capacity of cities to function, so that the people living and working in cities – particularly the poor and vulnerable – survive and thrive no matter what stresses or shocks they encounter.” (CRF, 2015)
The definition also shows how the goal of resilience is to enable continued functioning of processes and infrastructure that enable people to thrive. It is easy to think that modern cities are not vulnerable to hazards and have the support of large populations to recover from disasters. The framework compares cities to the delicate networks we see in ecosystems, where activities are interrelated and interdependent.
Another interesting part of this framework is that it acknowledges cities as hubs for innovation and new ideas. The framework seeks to incorporate participation and customisation of the framework to a range of contexts, and it is stated that both the framework and the index are intended to facilitate a process of engagement with and within cities that generates dialogue and deeper understanding. This shows the importance of community involvement and strengthens the overall implementation of resilience building activities. Importantly in terms of accountability, the CRF brings together actions and indicators so resilience can be measured and quantified. This is a vital part of learning and reflection on the strengths and weaknesses of the framework itself, and helps implementing parties to track progress and actively identify opportunities for improvement.
In understanding disasters - no matter where you live - it is not an issue of if it will happen, it is a matter of when and how prepared you and your business are. Anyone can implement resilience thinking into their everyday business practice and use frameworks - such as the city resilience framework - to assess the context in which you operate and prepare a robust resilience plan. Conducting an audit of the specific risks, strengths and vulnerabilities of your entire supply chain including the communities in which you operate can help prepare a business to absorb shocks, adapt to ever-changing circumstances and play a role in building resilient communities.
Written by Maddie Balzer