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With weather and climate-related events increasing in kind and cost, disaster resilience is becoming ever-more important. But what is disaster resilience, exactly? More importantly, how do you know if you’ve achieved it?
In this article, we’ll look to expert guidance to determine the three attributes of disaster resilience.
Why disaster resilience is becoming more important
Why raise these questions now, though? Surging interest in disaster resilience is a clear response to the sharp uptick in disasters.
We’ve all seen the news coverage.
Last year, for instance, there were 27 confirmed weather/climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion in the U.S. alone.
Sure, 27 might not seem like a large number, but take into consideration the fact that the annual average between the years 1980 and 2024 was a mere nine events. Fast forward to the most recent five years, 2020–2024, and that number jumps up to 23.
Accordingly, costs have gone up, as well. In Australia, the cost of natural disasters is estimated to increase to A$73 billion per annum by 2060. That is from an average of A$18.2 billion in 2016.
What is disaster resilience?
This simultaneous increase in the quantity and cost of disasters makes disaster resilience more important than ever. But what is disaster resilience? The United Nations (UN) Office for Disaster Risk Reduction defines it this way:
The ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate, adapt to, transform and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions through risk management.
Limiting disaster risk
Sounds simple enough. However, that definition raises another question; how do you know if you’ve achieved disaster resilience?
No doubt governments, enterprises, and communities are asking themselves that very question.
Well, ensuring disaster resilience, in many respects, depends on managing disaster risk, which is the potential loss of life, injury, or destroyed or damaged assets that could occur to a system, society or a community.
According to the UN’s Sendai Framework, priorities for reducing disaster risk should include:
- Understanding disaster risk
- Strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk
- Investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience
- Enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response, and to ‘Build Back Better’ in recovery, rehabilitation, and reconstruction
Attributes of disaster resilience
Investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience stands out amongst the list.
Entities that have prioritized such investments have seen savings in disaster recovery. They’ve also become more disaster resilient, three attributes of which include:
- Emergency management plans are resilience-based, to build disaster resilience within communities over time. Communities, governments, and other organizations take resilience outcomes into account when considering and developing core services, products, and policies. They are adaptive and flexible to respond appropriately in disasters.
- Businesses and other service providers undertake wide-reaching business continuity planning that links with their security and emergency management arrangements.
- Land use planning systems and building control arrangements reduce, as far as is practicable, community exposure to unreasonable risks from known hazards, and suitable arrangements are implemented to protect life and property.
Finally, disasters are on the rise, making implementing resilience priorities a life-saving investment. What are some measures to take, though?
Well, last year the Australian Government issued a report, 'Boots on the Ground: Raising Resilience', laying out 10 recommendations to ensure disaster resilience. Read our take on the proposals, here.
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