Making sense of resilience planning and policy in the pursuit of sustainable development and disaster risk reduction

ABSTRACT

Socio-ecological resilience and community vulnerability to climate change impacts are temporally and spatially unique concepts. Spatial models at the county-level within the US Mississippi River basin over the past 20 years (1990–2009) were developed to explain losses associated with flooding events. We applied integrative indices, spatial clustering, and spatial regression models to estimate the role of planning and policy effort in disaster risk reduction and sustainable development. Results suggest that engaged social capital and social justice characteristics combined with local proactive planning and policy in place before a disaster result in lower disaster losses and serve to enhance community resilience. Further, while our findings are informed by a case study within the US, they are applicable to other less-developed regional and country contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• community resilience
• planning and policy context
• spatial analysis
• vulnerability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Hyun Kim is an assistant professor in the College of Social Sciences at Chungnam National University, South Korea. His research driven by spatial econometrics, longitudinal data analysis, and content analysis encompasses environmental policy and planning, multilevel climate governance and climate adaptation policy, climate justice and vulnerability-readiness nexus, food-energy-water security nexus, planning and policy for coastal community resilience, the intersections of urban (re) development, social capital, and social justice, urban gentrification and urban policy, and science-policy integrated community participatory research.

David W. Marcouiller is a professor of regional development economics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. A resource economist by training, his work focuses on the linkages between natural resources and community economic development with a particular interest in land use compatibility, multifunctional rural landscapes, amenity-driven migration, and community disaster resiliency. He has published more than 200 manuscripts in a variety of outlets that span regional science, planning, resource economics, and rural development.

Notes

1 Less-developed regional contexts can include much of the developing world and rural or inner-city regions of the developed world reflective of a general lack of agglomeration economies, amenity assets, declining social programs, and increased rates of poverty and income inequality.

2 Many of these studies are generally in line with the 2015 agenda that calls for ‘concerted efforts towards building an inclusive, sustainable and resilient future for people and planet’ (United Nations, 2015).