Measuring resilience to multiple hazards: concepts, framework and application

Resilience measurement frameworks that attempt to capture all hazards or are otherwise very generic do not support identification of actionable improvements in resilience. The questions of ‘resilience of what, to what?’ must be clearly defined. Building on the success of its flood resilience measurement for communities (FRMC) approach to measuring resilience to a single hazard, the Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance has now tackled this challenge  by developing and deploying a multi-hazard community resilience measurement framework and tool.

This presentation will outline the process of adapting a single-hazard resilience measurement approach to a multi-hazard one, which involved thoroughly engaging with questions about which aspects of a systems resilience are critical under a specific hazard, how they differ or converge with other hazards and why. As a result, the multi-hazard framework has been intentionally designed so that users can develop deeper insights into the hazard-specific aspects of a system as well as some of the more general resilience strengths and needs. Further, the multi-hazard framework has expanded the utility and capacity building benefits that were being achieved through the flood tool to different contexts and climate hazards.

We will present the final multi-hazard framework and how it is currently being used to jointly measure resilience two quite different hazards – flood and heatwave – in different settings in North and South America. Potential to add further hazards, such as wildfire and storms, will also be explored.