Urban resilience
[citation needed] World War II more directly impacted many cities that were the site of battles and bombings, such as Hiroshima, Chongqing, Stalingrad, and Dresden.
[4] Pioneers of urban environmental history include: Martin Melosi, Christine Rosen, Joel A. Tarr, Peter Brimblecombe, Bill Luckin, and Christopher Hamlin.
[7][8] Accordingly, resilience strategies have tended to be conceived of in terms of counter-terrorism, other disasters (earthquakes, wildfires, tsunamis, coastal flooding, solar flares, etc.
Building resilience in cities relies on making investment decisions that prioritize spending on activities that offer alternatives that can perform well in different scenarios.
Resilience efforts address not only how individuals, communities and businesses cope with multiple shocks and stresses, but also exploit opportunities for transformational development.
One way that national and local governments address disaster risk in urban areas, often supported by international funding agencies, is through resettlement.
When applied, UN-Habitat's holistic approach to increasing resiliency can improve local government's ability to ensure the well being of citizens, protect development gains, and maintain functionality in the face of hazards.
They consider the stakeholders that need to be involved in implementation, including civil society organizations, national governments, and the private sector.
Engagement: By signing an agreement with a UN agency, the local government is better able to work with the necessary stakeholders to assess risk and build in resilience across the city.
To date, this approach has been adopted in Barcelona (Spain), Asuncion (Paraguay), Maputo (Mozambique), Port Vila (Vanuatu), Bristol (United Kingdom), Lisbon (Portugal), Yakutsk (Russia), and Dakar (Senegal).
As a pioneering partnership platform, the MCUR gathers the most prominent actors committed to building resilience globally, including the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), The World Bank Group, Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, Inter-American Development Bank, Rockefeller Foundation, 100 Resilient Cities, C40, ICLEI and Cities Alliance, and it is chaired by UN-Habitat.
The MCUR helps local governments and municipal professionals understand the primary utility of the vast array of tools and diagnostics designed to assess, measure, monitor and improve city-level resilience.
The Collaboration has produced a guidebook to illustrate how cities are responding to current and future challenges by thinking strategically about design, planning, and management for building resilience.
In December 2013, The Rockefeller Foundation launched this initiative, which is dedicated to promoting urban resilience, defined as "the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, and systems within a city to survive, adapt, and grow no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience".
On the other hand, information technologies have often had a positive impact by supporting innovation and promoting efficiencies in urban infrastructure, thus leading to lower-cost city services.
Extended periods of heat and droughts also cause widespread crop losses, spikes in electricity demand, forest fires, air pollution and reduced biodiversity in vital land and marine ecosystems.
Urban heat island (UHI) refers to the presence of an inner-city micro-climate in which temperatures are higher than those in surrounding rural areas.
The building materials commonly present in urban areas (concrete and asphalt) absorb and store heat much more effectively than the surrounding natural environment.
The black color of asphalt surfaces (roads, parking lots and highways) is able to absorb significantly more electromagnetic radiation, further encouraging the rapid and effective capture and storage of heat throughout the day.
The physical causes of heat waves and droughts and the exacerbation of the UHI effect are only part of the equation in terms of fatalities; social factors play a role as well.
Statistically, senior citizens represent the majority of heat (and cold) related deaths within urban areas[35] and this is often due to social isolation.
In rural areas, seniors are more likely to live with family or in care homes, whereas in cities they are often concentrated in subsidized apartment buildings and in many cases have little to no contact with the outside world.
In partnership with government and non-government social services, paramedics, police, firefighters, nurses and volunteers; the above-mentioned groups working with vulnerable populations should carry out regular door-to-door visits during these extreme heat scenarios.
[43] Heat waves and droughts can cause massive damage to agricultural areas vital to providing food staples to urban populations.
Flooding, either from weather events, rising sea levels or infrastructure failures are a major cause of death, disease and economic losses throughout the world.
[52] Several studies looked into the flow patterns and redistribution in streets during storm events and the implication in terms of flood modelling.
One of the best strategies, if possible, is to simply create enough space for the excess water by expanding areas of parkland in or adjacent to the zone where flooding is most likely to occur.
Excess water is diverted into these areas when necessary, as in Cardiff, Wales around the new Millennium Stadium and at the main Olympic site in Beijing, China .
[66] The pre-Incan Uru people of Lake Titicaca in Peru have lived on floating islands made of reeds for hundreds of years.
However, with the establishment of China's Ministry of Emergency Management and the country's deepening awareness of and emphasis on earthquake prevention and mitigation, related research and institutions have developed rapidly.
