Learning for Resilience

Abstract:
The field of community resilience is laden with diverse opinions. As an emerging field attempting to embrace multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary approaches, the concept of resilience and how and if to quantitatively measure it can easily become hotly contested. Embryonically emerging from the field of ecology, the concept of resilience has been adopted and adapted to a wide range of discipline including engineering, design, planning, disaster risk reduction, and economics. Each field has initially sought to define resilience specific to their needs before broadening the definition to the wider research community. This has created confusion in understanding, defining, and utilising resilience in practical situations and in hinders the ability of cross-disciplinary teams effectively working together to strength and create resilient communities.  

This paper investigates resilience literature across multiple disciplines, exploring the who (who creates resilience and who is it for), the what (how disciplines define resilience), the when (time periods for practically applying resilience), the where (locations can scales for applying resilience), the why (the importance of resilience across disciplines), and the how (methods of measuring, quantifying, or applying resilience). The review has been completed by a diverse team of international academics representing the disciplines of architecture, engineering, design, planning, and construction and spans across Oceania, Africa, and the UK.