Suchergebnisse

Purpose: Construction industry and the built environment professions play an important role in contributing to society's improved resilience. It is therefore important to improve their knowledge base to strengthen their capacities. This paper aims to identify gaps in the knowledge base of construction professionals that are undermining their ability to contribute to the development of a more disaster resilient society. The paper also provides a series of recommendations to key actors in the built environment on how to more effectively mainstream disaster resilience in the construction process. Design/methodology/approach: The paper reports the findings of 87 stakeholder interviews with: national and local government organisations; the community; non-governmental organisations, international non-governmental organisation and other international agencies; academia and research organisations; and the private sector, which were supplemented by a comprehensive analysis of key policies related to disaster resilience and management. The findings were validated using focus group discussions that were conducted as part of six organised stakeholder workshops. Findings: The primary and secondary data generated a long list of needs and skills. Finally, the identified needs and skills were combined "like-for-like" to produce broader knowledge gaps. Some of the key knowledge gaps identified are: governance, legal frameworks and compliance; business continuity management; disaster response; contracts and procurement; resilience technologies, engineering and infrastructure; knowledge management; social and cultural awareness; sustainability and resilience; ethics and human rights; innovative financing mechanisms; multi stakeholder approach, inclusion and empowerment; post disaster project management; and multi hazard risk assessment. The study also identifies a series of recommendations to key actors in the built environment on how to more effectively mainstream disaster resilience in the construction process. The recommendations are set out in five key themes: education, policy, practice, research and cross-cutting. Research limitations/implications: This study is part of an EU funded research project that is seeking to develop innovative and timely professional education that will update the knowledge and skills of construction professionals in the industry and enable them to contribute more effectively to disaster resilience building efforts. Originality/value: The paper provides an extensive analysis of the gaps in the knowledge base of construction professionals that are undermining their ability to contribute to the development of a more disaster resilient society. Accordingly, the paper recommends major changes in construction education, research, policy and practice with respect to mainstreaming disaster resilience within the construction process.

AbstractContemporary crisis management studies often make use of the concept of resilience. However, resilience as a term has a wide variety of meanings and has been criticized as lacking operationalization and empirical validation. The current study aimed to link resilience concepts to observable behaviour within a disaster medicine management system. Resilience concepts, captured in so‐called capability cards and further operationalized into six resilience prerequisites, were used in the study. An experienced crisis management team participated in a large‐scale crisis management exercise and behaviours were captured through observations, video and audio recordings. Using a markers and strategies analytical framework, two blinded raters classified observable behaviours that exemplified resilient practice. The analysis showed a high degree of agreement (79%) between the combined operationalized capability cards and resilience prerequisites and the empirical classification of behaviours. The current study shows an empirical link from resilience concepts to observable behaviours during an exercise. Observed episodic narratives exemplify empirically connected specific strategies to specific resilience markers. These results demonstrate a method with observed narratives for analyzing resilience in crisis management teams using a markers and strategies approach. Future studies can use the results to create structured observation protocols to evaluate resilient behaviours in crisis management teams.

In the face of persistent health inequalities in later life, the objective of the study is to examine whether distinct forms of health lifestyles and individual or collective social capital predict the probability of health resilience among a cohort of men and women aged 65 and older from lower social classes. A longitudinal study design based on four waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel (2002 to 2008) was employed. The study cohort included 2,075 participants. Analyses were performed using hierarchical-linear models, cluster analyses and binary logistic regressions. The main outcome measures were health-related quality of life, based on a modified SF12, and a dichotomised measure for health resilience based on the SF12 scores. A social gradient was observed for the physical health of men and for the mental health of women, respectively, with participants from lower social classes reporting lesser scores of health-related quality of life compared to participants with higher socioeconomic status. Regarding the physical resilience of elderly men, a moderate health conscious lifestyle was the most pronounced predictor (OR=9.5, p<0.1%). Social capital did not elevate the probability of physical resilience among men. Mental resilience of women was strongly associated with a health conscious lifestyle as well as a moderate health risky lifestyle (OR=4.2, p<0.1% in each case). Quantitative aspects of social capital, like an above average number of friends and close relatives, were positively associated with mental resilience of elderly women (OR=1.9, p<0.1% and OR=1.3, p<5%, respectively). The data provides evidence that health conscious as well as moderate health risky lifestyles and quantitative aspects of individual social capital serve as protective factors for health resilience among older men and women with low socioeconomic status. The findings could be used as guidelines to promote health resilience among the elderly in lower social classes and thus to reduce health inequalities in later life.

The initial article chooses a historical approach to the theoretical discussion of resilience notions by reconstructing the emergence of its manifold layers of meaning. The first part focuses on metaphor and concept transfers, each of which has produced a disciplinary conceptual tradition and a culture of resilience. The second part then describes the genesis of the system-theoretical "resilience framework" of the biologist and ecosystem researcher C. S. Holling, which still shapes the resilience discourse to this day. The second article reconstructs the roots and the development steps of the concept of resilience in energy systems, starting in the alternative energy discourse in the early 1970ies and ending in the first elaborated theory of resilient energy system design by Amory Lovins in 1982. Risk management and resilience management share important features and they both aim at preparing systems for uncertain threats or stressors and their impacts. Still, the level of uncertainty regarding stressors and impacts, the type of systems addressed and the systems' dynamics allow for a distinction between the applicability of either risk or resilience management. The third article provides a short introduction to the specifics of each strategy for coping with uncertainty and presents guidelines for designing a resilient critical infrastructure. ; 217

The paper aims to determine the trajectories of the development of small towns in terms of the urban resilience concept in a demographic dimension. It makes it possible to answer the question of how towns adapt to contemporary socio-economic processes. The subject of the research is a set of small towns in Wielkopolskie Voivodship. The period of the study involves the years 2003–2016 which enables us to grasp the changeability of development conditions related to transformation, globalization, and integration processes as well as the economic crisis. The research is conducted with the use of indexes of change dynamics with a fixed basis. Analysis provides for a diversified size structure of small towns, their location and administrative functions performed. In 2003–2016 the trajectories of the resilience of Wielkopolskie small towns were diversified. The basic criterion influencing their course is the size structure of a given center and its location, whereas administrative functions are of minor significance. The smallest towns (of a mixed type — i.e., roller-coster with elements of avant-garde type) seem the most resistant to external disturbances, have a higher degree of resilience and thus adapt better to contemporary socio-economic changes in the demographic dimension. An important external disturbance which clearly modifies the values of the selected indexes of resilience and vulnerability dynamics as well as the course of the trajectories of the development of towns with a diversified size structure was an economic crisis strengthened by globalization and integration processes.