Making Cities Resilient Report 2012

CHAPTER 5 | LOOKING FORWARD: WHAT ARE SOME POSSIBLE APPROACHES TO MEASURING RESILIENCE IN CITIES
it can use this as a basic building block for improvements that address hazards. For example, building and
infrastructure standards can be improved (increasing storm water runoff; revisiting build codes); existing
service provision can be adjusted for new risks or risk levels (measures to reach populations affected by
heat waves, etc.); land use management can be adjusted to new or heightened risks and all of these can be
supported by changes over time in private sector investments, changes in insurance premiums and coverage.
Measuring resilience through urban planning and its implementation
As this report has shown, several Campaign cities are using urban planning as a tool for risk reduction, and
many see this as a key component of resilience. Box 5.4 offers a list of some aspects of urban planning
that together with their implementation can contribute to resilience.
Box 5.4 : How urban planning can contribute to resilience and
disaster risk reduction
• Working with multiple stakeholders throughout the planning process to identify known risks, needs
and potential solutions, realising the potential of communities to contribute to risk reduction.
• Incorporating risk assessment – considering exposure, vulnerability and hazards, urban settlements
development and services- in all urban development designs, projects and programmes.
• Making safe land available for urban development, avoiding construction in disaster- prone areas,
leaving buffers and providing recreational areas.
• Ensuring that public space for streets, infrastructure and parks is identified and protected.
• Upgrading informal settlements, with attention to access roads, flood-risk, other safety measures.
• Installing risk-reducing infrastructure, including drainage and sewerage systems
• Assessing how urban development contributes to improving the lives of the poorest or most
vulnerable people in a city.
• Developing good information on risk and communicating risk information widely.
• Protecting ecosystems to allow proper storm water drainage, avoid extensive erosion and protect
against storms and tidal waves.
• Developing plans for post-disaster reconstruction that reduce future risk.
According to UN-Habitat, the importance of urban planning in building resilience has many implications.
First of all, urban planning allows towns and cities to be analysed and planned as a system comprised
of various sectors and institutions. This is crucial in coping with interdependencies among failures in
infrastructure in disaster situations. Urban planning also contributes to preventing secondary disasters and
delays in the rehabilitation and recovery process. Disaster risk assessment, preparedness and planning
for recovery, with multiple stakeholders involved in urban management before a disaster, is one potential
solution that can contribute to foreseeing multiple systems failures as well as avoiding sectorisation of
recovery planning after disasters.
Secondly, the planning exercise can reinforce stakeholder relationships, institutional frameworks and
partnerships among all urban stakeholders, particularly planners architects, engineers, disaster and risk
reduction management specialists, sectoral specialists, private sector, and communities to address risk
reduction and resilience in a holistic manner.
Thirdly, is important to strengthen the legal planning frameworks and codes in urban areas to support
resilience. Cities, towns and settlements are expanding and village settlements are becoming towns and
cities. A legal framework can guide future planning and integration of disaster risk reduction. As outlined in
Essential 6, it is important to apply and enforce realistic and risk compliant codes that can also meet the
needs of low-income citizens and guide up-grading of informal settlements.
Developed with UN-Habitat for this report.
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