Abstract
The concept of resilience has become a part of the larger discourse not only for the engineering professions involved in the design of buildings and infrastructure, but also for disaster researchers in many academic fields as well as policymakers in governments at the local and national levels. The concept has evolved significantly over the past 10–20 years. In the early 2000s, the engineering community was coming to grips with the two paradigms of resilience: (1) a more technical approach to design that focused on predictability and stability in a steady state; and (2) a broader definition originating in systems theory and ecology that focused on the ability to reorganize while undergoing change. The concept of resilience continues to be redefined, in part because of the human and community impacts highlighted by the COVID pandemic, and natural and climate-induced disasters. Recent experience suggests that there are gaps in the narrower technical/engineering framing of resilience as well as in the overarching considerations of building resilience into our social and physical infrastructure. This article briefly reviews the relationship between engineering and societal efforts in promoting resilience, discusses changes in how different research fields and policymakers think about resilience, and offers an outlook for future planning. It discusses successes and failures from multiple disaster recovery efforts, and evaluates policies and programs designed to improve resilience as an ex-ante recovery measure. The article also includes lessons learned from the pandemic, and from evolving polices addressing climate change. It provides examples from relatively successful resilience programs, as well as opportunities for new approaches to resilience through changes in professional and technical education to improve integration of resilience across multiple fields. It also suggests investments in policies and multi-benefit programs to improve public- and private-sector capacity and therefore resilience before disasters strike.
Introduction
The word resilience was introduced into the English language in the 17th century in medicine, from the Latin verb,
As the concept of resilience entered the fields involved in earthquake engineering in the 1990s and early 2000s, researchers began to ask how we measure and monitor the capacity to rebound from future disasters. Academics as well as various government agencies formed multidisciplinary teams from engineering and the social sciences to develop models that evaluated various combinations of existing conditions and policies for improvement in physical infrastructure as well as social, economic, institutional, and community capital to define a baseline from which resilience efforts could be evaluated (Comerio, 2011).
Effectively, these scholars redefined resilience in relation to complex adaptive systems, increasingly avoided a narrow definition of resilience as improved building codes for disaster “recovery,” and preferred the broader concepts of urban renewal, regeneration, and reorganization of the physical environment, together with improvement of social and institutional services. In 2012 the National Academies
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As many federal agencies tried to include an understanding of how they could contribute to these goals, resilience became the buzzword of federal grant funding in 2012. While research at the three national earthquake engineering research centers contributed to resilience research, it was difficult to introduce the concepts into conventional engineering instruction and professional practice. Practicing engineers struggled to convince clients to use performance-based design methods for buildings and infrastructure without clear mandates in the building code. The struggle to adopt the concept of resilience in government programs, education, and engineering practice took place in a period of exceptionally damaging earthquakes, including the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, the 2010–2011 events in Haiti, New Zealand, Chile, and Japan, and the 2015 Nepal earthquake.
Incredible strides in resilience 2013–2019
Despite the difficulties in defining resilience across multiple disciplines, the research by the national academies and national earthquake engineering centers in the United States and others internationally led to significant attention to resilience outcomes by some governmental agencies and high-profile programs in the United States and around the world. The 100 Resilient Cities program was launched by the Rockefeller Foundation in 2013 to support local governments and institutions in cities around the globe to identify economic, social, and physical challenges with a goal of “enabling them to survive, adapt, and grow in the face of chronic stresses and acute shocks” (Urban Institute, 2018). Despite its aspirations and influences, the program was shuttered between 2017 and 2019 due to budget constraints; however, many cities continued to use the model and support local efforts. During the same time-period, the World Bank (2022b) and the United Nations made systematic efforts to incorporate resilience into their disaster recovery programs with greater local government coordination, funding transparency among international donors, and developing a culture of safety and resilience in line with environmental and social efforts (United Nations Office of Disaster Risk Reduction [UNDRR], 2019).
In the United States, a National Science Foundation Grand Challenge Project on
The COVID pandemic and climate disasters change perceptions 2020–2023
Until 2019, most researchers and practitioners in our fields believed we could continue to improve resilience in our communities with a five-part focus on (1) improving infrastructure, (2) retrofitting key existing building types, (3) developing building codes for low-damage and functional recovery, (4) increasing land use regulation for hazardous site conditions, and (5) improving public information regarding risk (Comerio and Pampanin, 2020). The onset of the COVID pandemic in 2020 introduced a new set of disaster conditions worldwide. Globally, people’s lives changed because of sickness, isolation, stress, and the significant number of lives lost. Although none of the built environment was damaged by floods, fire, wind, or ground shaking, we saw massive changes in how people used the physical environment. The pandemic introduced major cultural changes for families, businesses, and institutions adapting to remote work and school. The impacts on where and how people lived, and on empty offices and commercial real estate continue to this day, highlighting the importance of individual and societal priorities that affect resilience.
At the same time, the United States, and other nations experienced increased numbers of climate-related disasters—extreme floods, drought, heat, and wildfires. Insurance losses from natural disasters topped at US$100 billion for the fourth straight year in 2023 2 and in the United States, insurance premiums rose to 32% between 2019 and 2023. The cost of rebuilding increased to 55% nationally and over 100% in California (Climate Central, 2024; NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information [NCEI], 2024). Unrelated to the pandemic or natural disasters, but equally traumatic during that period were the nationwide protests over racial profiling and police brutality, as well as strikes by essential workers highlighting economic inequality. The wars in Ukraine and later Israel and Gaza added to societal stress and uncertainty. Combined, these phenomena shed light on people’s awareness of risk and vulnerability, in their homes, workplaces, and communities. In the face of human suffering, life loss, economic insecurity, and overwhelming climate disasters, scholars in both the social and technical resilience research community have suggested that the pre-pandemic approach to community resilience through steady improvements to small segments of the built environment seems insufficient in the face of so many disasters and so much social upheaval.
Redefining our approach to resilience
How do these multiple phenomena change our conception of community resilience?
The first order of business seems to be the need to acknowledge limitations to concepts outside our purview that are hard to implement. We in the technical community are not equipped to undertake community engagement, no matter how often we say it’s important. We are not very good at changing hearts and minds, whether it is breaking down institutional silos, or asking banks or businesses or even public institutions to think of themselves as “critical infrastructure,” even when we see the importance of their societal roles. Most important, we must acknowledge that singe-issue approaches (e.g. seismic design) cannot bring resilience to scale.
What do solutions look like?
While we need to continue our focus on the built environment, we need to do two things differently. First, we need to improve how we teach our professional and research students (e.g. engineers, architects, city planners, social scientists, business, and law students) who work with the physical environment on how to learn from each other and how to collaborate on community resilience. Many universities already structure interdisciplinary programs and reward students with enhanced degrees. For example, the University of California Berkeley, College of Environmental Design (CED) offers comprehensive yet manageable undergraduate and graduate certificate programs in four interdisciplinary subject areas: Global Urban Humanities, Design Innovation, Geographic Information Science and Technology, and Real Estate. The Schools of Business, Law, Engineering, and Public Policy offer a smaller range of programs with other departments. Resilience-focused programs among key disciplines would help students learn to communicate and collaborate, enhancing their own disciplinary strength while broadening their understanding of other aspects of resilience.
Second, we need to learn from history to contribute to evidence-based strategies and policies. For example, the United States made remarkable environmental strides after the 1930s dust bowl that forever changed land management policies. The US Highway Act of 1956 delivered infrastructure to the nation with scale and speed. The democratization of resources through the improvement of public programs (e.g. the Housing Acts of 1949 and 1954) demonstrated a mechanism for public investment in a traditionally private class of real estate. Similarly, improving public institutions with a vision of service is also critical to resilience. For example, improved funding of public services lessened the hardships of the COVID pandemic and demonstrated the importance of a social safety net. Funding for and improvement of key public agencies from local building and planning departments to national agencies (FEMA, NIST, HUD, NIH, etc.), could increase public access to key essential services such as housing, disaster recovery, and healthcare, all of which contribute to community resilience. We need well-rounded, well-trained professionals in all levels of government, who contribute to the development and implementation of resilience policies.
What can we do in the technical community?
We can obviously focus on improvements in the areas of our expertise—land use, buildings, and infrastructure—but with better engagement with the other sectors that impact the resilience outcomes, such as finance and development, regulations, construction, and maintenance. We can broaden the perspective that “resilient infrastructure” should not be limited to higher standards for a narrowly defined group of occupancies in the building codes. We can recognize that social infrastructure (housing, education, healthcare, transportation as well as banks, groceries, and other critical services) requires functioning physical facilities and cohesive management of services during and after disasters. As such, we can work with professionals in our communities and government agencies to define a broader approach to resilience to assist the community plans for how people and institutions adapt and prepare for uncertain futures. Communities with housing shortages may want higher standards to protect existing housing. Institutions such as healthcare or universities may want higher standards for buildings that they consider critical to operations—ones that currently fall outside current high-risk code requirements.
To accomplish this, we will need to continue to improve how we define regulations for design and construction, but we also need to rethink higher education. We can emphasize multidisciplinary research and recognize and promote applied research. We can train future practitioners to better understand the larger landscape of practice with joint programs and course offerings to ensure architects and engineers know about and work with experts in land use, law, business, and finance. With those skills our graduates will be better able to collaborate across sectors to promote resilience policies and we can prepare some of our graduates to serve in the public sphere.
Lessons from recent programs that enhance resilience
To understand how to enhance our approaches to resilience, it is useful to look at a variety of policies and programs that have tried to improve both physical and social systems. How can an infrastructure- or building-focused program also improve housing, healthcare, education, working conditions, or provide other social benefits? Can we devise multi-target, multi-benefit programs to combine resilience enhancement for both energy and seismic? Can we create housing programs that benefit lower-income families and promote resilience? Can changes in lending practices improve infrastructure and social services? Can a specific activity or intervention be designed to be assessed through multiple lenses (with multiple benefits)? What can we learn from past experiences and creative programs?
Lessons from the 100 Resilient Cities program
Despite its short existence, the 100 Resilient Cities program demonstrated the value and benefits of an open-ended program model which allowed cities to define their own needs be they infrastructure, housing, disaster preparedness, or race relations. Essentially, the program introduced the idea of “stressors” (pre-existing social, economic, and political vulnerabilities) to be considered alongside “shocks” (actual hazard events). Unfortunately, expanding the range of stressors and shocks diluted their efforts, and produced few measurable results. Even a major international nonprofit such as The Rockefeller Foundation could not finance and manage the sheer number of activities in cities around the world. The lesson from this grand experiment is that to approach urban resilience through institutional change requires multiple entities and efforts, not just one single umbrella program (Urban Institute, 2018).
Lessons from the Los Angeles Water System resilience plan
The Los Angeles Water System program was created when the City of Los Angeles adopted the
The Department of Water and Power (LADWP) was founded in 1902, and is the largest municipal utility in the United States. Its service area covers 469 sq miles and provides water and power to approximately 4 million people, delivering over 494 million gallons of water delivered per day, that is, 553,900 acre-ft per year.
The resilience plan recognized numerous challenges to the water system in addition to the seismic risk. These included uncertain supplies due to climate change, north bay-delta uncertainties, dust mitigation in lake water storage, and groundwater contamination as well as rising costs. To address these issues, the 50-year plan included the following key components: (1) three new trunkline fault crossings; (2) improved reliability through multiple measures such as stormwater capture, recycling, groundwater remediation, and conservation; and (3) next-generation pipelines throughout Los Angeles to be replaced on a 50-year maintenance schedule (Davis, 2018, 2021; Hu and Davis, 2016; LA County Public Works, 2023).
The critical features of this plan include (1) the use of short-term local government funding for major pipeline construction enhancements, with a long-term maintenance model for ongoing investment in local pipelines; (2) the capacity for long-term planning and management by an established agency; (3) the use of existing and new innovative programs and strategies to meet overall goals; and (4) the recognized need for collaboration between multiple infrastructure owners and operators, strategic partnerships, and special projects involving all geotechnical hazards.
Lessons from European combined retrofits for energy and seismic improvements
Studies of the European Union (EU) opportunities for seismic and energy policies showed Italy to be the highest priority, based on the combination of seismic hazards and climate conditions (Romano et al., 2023). About the same time as the EU report, a large team at the University School for Advanced Studies in Pavia, Italy, released a technical analysis of combining seismic and energy retrofit schemes (Clemett et al., 2023). The Italian government developed an initiative for residential energy and seismic retrofits called the “Superbonus” program, implemented in 2020. The program paid 110% of the costs, justified as a post-COVID economic incentive. It had a maximum cap of €100,000 per home, offset against taxes for 5 years (Daunton, 2021). The take-up for the scheme was overwhelming but the implementation was problematic. There was too much money distributed very quickly, and they found that contractors did the energy work (insulation, double glazing, weatherstripping, etc.), but did not complete the more difficult seismic retrofit component. As a result, the program was canceled by 2023.
Subsequently, policymakers have worked to develop an improved program, calling it the “Double Bonus.” This iteration combines funds from Italian government and EU subsidies for the “green deal” but focuses on better oversight and training. Academics have contributed by developing and testing design options, such as a structural and energy efficient exoskeleton (Pampanin, 2022; Speranza et al., 2023). The new program will include several critical resilience features: (1) it combines multiple funding sources; (2) it would be managed by a central government agency with “hybrid experts” led by Mauro Dolce, an engineer with extensive knowledge and experience in Civil Protection and Public Administration; (3) the program addresses seismic risk before disasters, lowers seismic recovery costs for existing buildings, and provides financial incentives to owners for construction as well as ongoing energy savings; and (4) the new program recognizes the need for extensive training and oversight.
Lessons from the World Bank resilient housing reboot
The Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) was established in 2006, as a multi- donor partnership that supports low- and middle-income countries to manage and reduce risks from natural hazards and climate change. One priority area within the GFDRR is reducing risk and mainstreaming disaster risk management. The Global Program for Resilient Housing is one of their programs. Within their many programs, the World Bank has articulated a variety of approaches to deal with disaster reduction in an ever-changing global environment. In response to the COVID pandemic, two new guidelines emerged. They are the GRID approach—green, resilient, inclusive development (World Bank and International Monetary Fund, 2021), and The Four Pillars of the Agenda to Navigate Multiple Crises, which include (1) addressing food insecurity; (2) protecting people and jobs; (3) strengthening resilience; and (4) strengthening policies and institutions. These are articulated in a report on response to global crises and long-term development (World Bank, 2022c).
Despite the efforts to recognize and address the complexity of the changing disaster and development landscape, the small “Resilient Housing” program began to recognize that despite better and more inclusive programs, the hard truth was that housing rarely recovered and their programs could not keep pace with the scale of losses annually. They asked what else they could do to enhance the concept of “Build Better Before?” Comerio was asked to undertake a study and develop a report. She proposed that the World Bank invest in increasing housing capacity to go beyond typical improvements to building codes and existing housing models to include specialized programs to support what the market does not: affordable, accessible housing for marginalized populations, those often most vulnerable to disasters. The report (World Bank, 2022a) defines housing capacity as developing competencies, policies, and programs to support the equitable delivery of housing solutions, including (1) defining standards, ensuring quality, and promoting innovation; and (2) identifying housing conditions and developing and financing public and private programs for specific needs. The Global Program for Resilient Housing will pilot the approach in Indonesia.
The critical resilience features of the resilient housing reboot are that it reframes disaster preparedness and the notion of “build better before” by providing funding to develop government and private-sector skills for housing delivery. It includes education, training, and outreach with new curricula and materials for professional education, workforce development, and public engagement. Importantly, it addresses chronic housing problems and helps to prevent them becoming acute in a disaster.
Overall lessons from the four case studies
All four programs were selected because they each required a conceptual framework and a detailed implementation plan. In terms of a framework the case studies suggested three critical approaches: (1) the 100 Resilient Cities program emphasized that resilience needs multiple entities and efforts. However, (2) the L.A. Water, the E.U. Energy/Seismic, and the World Bank Housing cases all emphasized that their programs should focus on and reframe a specific issue or task; and (3) that their programs should address chronic problems. In terms of implementation, all four examples suggest that a good resilience program should include (1) plans for long-term goals and short-term accomplishments; (2) management by “hybrid experts” within government agencies; (3) development of multiple funding sources; (4) development of cooperative partnerships; (5) development of targeted education and training; and (6) integration of innovation with existing programs. Although none of the case studies provide a perfect roadmap to resilience, they exemplify how to promote co-benefits from single projects or programs.
Why rethink our approach to resilience?
The experience with the large-scale global disasters in the early 2000s, the COVID pandemic, and continued climate disasters demonstrate the inability to scale current approaches to disaster assistance to meet global needs in rich and poor countries. We need new policies and programs that can address individual and societal needs. At present, there are lofty goals for achieving resilience in the broader research community, but there have been limited options for implementation in both policy and practice. Similarly, for our technical community, resilience cannot be limited to the existing narrow confines of codes and standards for the built environment, without consideration of functional and societal needs.
Of course, the efforts to adopt performance-based engineering and functional recovery are to be lauded, but they could be augmented by our participation in larger programs and policies to ensure that all the decision-makers and actors in the production and operation of the built environment understand and participate in a larger resilience agenda. This means we may need to change the culture of how we educate our students, and how we work. We need to better translate the research we do into the public forum, and we need to build the capacity to support “hybrid professionals” in government agencies, and we need to implement and monitor new programs. How do we get from where we are to develop our own capacity to undertake cutting-edge research on technical issues,
Consider a recent study that was published in January 2024 (Ohenhen et al., 2024) and highly publicized in
This includes practitioners and government staff who understand the technical, social, economic, and policy components, and can act on legislation and develop and implement regulations. Effectively, this includes all levels of national, state, and local governments to be both willing and capable of creating and implementing policies for infrastructure funding as well as local governments, design professionals, contractors, and building officials capable of ensuring appropriate construction. And we need faculty who can teach such an approach in our educational system.
Conclusion: resilience is rooted in policy
In our fields, we need to train the next generation to think differently to practice and achieve resilience. We will need local and national building and planning legislation (e.g. planning incentives for better quality construction and innovative multi-hazard design solutions or programs to increase housing supply and access). We will likely need some type of national, risk-based, all-hazard insurance, and we will certainly need some type of integration of lifeline systems and/or regional management of infrastructure systems. To achieve these and a myriad of other possible resilience policies, we in the technical community should be re-envisioning higher education to encourage more “hybrid experts” both in terms of scientific knowledge and applied, practical skills training. To create resilience scholars and practitioners, we need our students to be engaged in the social science, economics, and policy components.
The lessons learned from the four case studies demonstrate a way forward. In these cases, a global organization (the World Bank), a national government (Italy), a major US foundation (Rockefeller), and a local government infrastructure manager (L.A. Water) demonstrated important lessons in resilience planning and implementation. They showed that a good resilience program should include (1) plans for long-term goals and short-term accomplishments; (2) management by “hybrid experts” within government agencies; (3) development of multiple funding sources; (4) development of cooperative partnerships; (5) development of targeted education and training; and (6) integration of innovation with existing programs. Furthermore, they showed the importance of policy and leadership at all levels, as well as the need for local professionals and businesses to play a role.
Tomorrow’s engineers and the related technical professions need to build on those efforts, to make the case that the continued function of key societal needs (access to housing, healthcare, food, banking, jobs, and social services) will require a more integrated approach to improved performance of the physical infrastructure that supports a full range of societal needs.
As such, we should look at expanding engineering undergraduate training for public sector careers, not only in building and planning departments but also in leadership roles in policy development and implementation. We should expand technical education and training for code professionals and all the construction workforces, as well as prepare our students with training for new jobs in fields we will need in the future, such as the monitoring and assessment of resilient buildings/systems and infrastructure, during construction and as part of facilities management. We should also expand our graduate programs for professionals with certificate programs in related fields, encouraging collaborations and hybrid specializations, and we can continue to develop opportunities for researchers to work with colleagues on interdisciplinary studies.
We can bring resilience to scale, and improve the built environment, but we will need to make changes in the culture of our educational system and our public institutions. We still need research specializations, but we also need to train engineers, architects, and planners with the technical and policy skills needed to make our communities, our cities, and our nations more resilient.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The research for this paper was developed and first presented as a Shah Family Distinguished Lecture on 4 March 2024.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: I am grateful to the Shah Family Fund and the Blume Engineering Center at Stanford University for the opportunity.
