Abstract
Uncertainty, unpredictability and change have become key characteristics of today’s interdependent world. Although risks, disasters and crises are inherent to human existence, the speed, frequency and scale at which they occur today are unprecedented. Natural disasters related to global warming have increased in the last decade. Although climate change is considered a global problem, its impacts are felt locally. Cities, then, must respond earlier and more effectively to risks and hazards. Although both ‘resilience thinking’ and ‘community based adaptation’ have made headway, they have been mainly applied to rural areas and natural resource management at regional levels within social–ecological systems. This paper applies the lessons of resilience thinking and experiences in community-based adaptation efforts to urban areas.
The paper argues that participatory knowledge management systems can enhance resilience in urban areas. Participatory knowledge management systems equip stakeholders at the local level to deal more effectively with sudden change, risks, and long-term stresses. Simultaneously, they can foster social capital and trust, strategic leadership, and enhance collective competence – all important components of resilient systems.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The full title of this research programme is ‘Urban chances – city growth and the sustainability challenge. Comparing fast growing cities in growing economies’. Funded under the 7th EU-framework programme (Project no. 244828), the programme partners include the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), Germany; Amsterdam Institute of Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), France; School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), India; Cities for Life Forum (FORO), Peru; Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento (CEBRAP), Brazil; Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research (NIBR), Norway; and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), South Africa. For more information on the research programme see: http://www.chance2sustain.eu/.
- 2.
- 3.
Redundancy refers to the extent to which substitutions are possible in the event of disruption or degradation (Norris et al. 2008: 131). When applied to urban systems, for instance, it can refer to alternative energy resources, redundancy in transport possibilities and/or roads, or communication systems. It always implies that alternative systems can take over in case the main system fails. Redundancy in urban governance networks is less straightforward. It is important that alternative actors can take over if the main actor fails to act in a crisis (see our paragraph on strategic leadership). However, redundancy in urban governance networks introduces the risk of unclear or overlapping possibilities, paralyzing rather than fostering key stakeholder initiatives.
- 4.
- 5.
It is interesting to note that Norris et al. (2008) listed very similar aspects of what they labelled primary sets of adaptive capacities; namely, economic development, social capital, information and communication and community competence. In their definition, ‘to build collective resilience, communities must reduce risk and resource inequities, engage local people in mitigation, create organizational linkages, boost and protect social supports, and plan for not having a plan, which requires flexibility, decision making skills and trusted sources of information that in function in the face of unknowns’ (Norris et al. 2008: 127).
- 6.
For instance, long-term predictions from climate change models need to be combined with local knowledge on specific trends already experienced to produce a localised understanding of risks (Reid et al. 2009).
- 7.
Bonding capital refers to social ties among people with a shared identity, i.e., homogeneous groups. Bridging capital refers to ties between groups with differing identities (heterogeneous groups) but with shared objectives. Linking social ties refers to vertical links, for instance between communities, leaders and government institutions.
- 8.
Norris et al. (2008) defined ‘community competence’ as ‘the networked equivalent of human agency’, hence the capacity for decision making and meaningful collective action. Prerequisites for these capacities are critical reflection and deliberation, and creativity and flexibility (Norris et al. 2008: 136). We label the capacity of governance networks of various stakeholders ‘collective competence’.
- 9.
A clear exception is the participatory vulnerability analysis (PVA) developed by Action Aid, which starts at the community level, but also feeds into district, national and international levels (Reid et al. 2009: 27).
References
Abel N, Cumming D et al (2006) Collapse and reorganization in social-ecological systems: questions, some ideas, and policy implications. Ecol Soc 11(1):17
Adger WN, Brown K et al (2005) The political economy of cross-scale networks in resource co-management. Ecol Soc 10(2):212–225
Aguirre BE (2006) Preliminary paper #356: on the concept of resilience. Disaster Research Centre, University of Delaware, Newark
Baud I, Hordijk M (2009) Dealing with risks in urban governance: what can we learn from ‘resilience thinking’. In: The new urban question: urbanism beyond neo-liberalism – 4th conference of the International Forum on Urbanism (IFoU), Amsterdam and Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), Zuiderkerk, 26–28 Nov 2009
Baud I, Kuffer M et al (2010) Understanding heterogeneity in metropolitan India: the added value of remote sensing data for analyzing sub-standard residential areas. Int J Appl Earth Obs Geoinf 12(5):359–374
Baud I, Sridharan N et al (2008) Mapping urban poverty for local governance in an Indian mega-city: the case of Delhi. Urban Stud 45(7):1385–1412
Baud ISA, Pfeffer K et al (2009) Matching deprivation mapping to urban governance in three Indian mega-cities. Habitat Int 33(4):365–377
Berkes F, Colding J et al (2003) Navigating social-ecological systems: building resilience for complexity and change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Bizikova L, Dickinson T et al (2009) Participatory scenario development for climate change adaptation. Particip Learn Action 60:167–172
Bruckmeier K, Tovey H (2008) Knowledge in sustainable rural development: from forms of knowledge to knowledge processes. Sociol Ruralis 48:313–329
Coaffee J, Healey P (2003) My voice: my place: tracking transformations in urban governance. Urban Stud 40(10):1979–1999
Dodman D (2010) Risk and resilience in urban areas: the climate change challenge. Resilience in urban development: what can urban governance contribute? University of Amsterdam
Dodman D, Ayers J et al (2009) Building resilience. State of the world 2009: into a warming world. The Worldwatch Institute, Washington, DC
Gaillard JC, Maceda EA (2009) Participatory three dimensional mapping for disaster risk reduction. Particip Learn Action 60:107–109
Godschalk DR (2003) Urban hazard mitigation: creating resilient cities. Nat Hazard Rev 4(3):136–143
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2001) Climate change 2001: impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability: contribution of working group II to the third assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2008) Technical paper on climate change and water. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Geneva, PCC-XXVIII/ Doc.13 (8.IV.2008)
Lebel L (2006) Governance and the capacity to manage resilience in regional social-ecological systems. Ecol Soc 11(1). http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss1/art19/
Longstaff PH (2005) Security, resilience, and communication in unpredictable environments such as terrorism, natural disasters, and complex technology. Center for Information Policy Research, Harvard University, Cambridge
Longstaff PH, Yang S (2008) Communication management and trust: their role in building resilience to ‘surprises’ such as natural disasters, pandemic flu, and terrorism. Ecol Soc 13(1):3
Manyena SB (2006) The concept of resilience revisited. Disasters 30(4):434–450
Miranda L, Hordijk M (1998) Let us build cities for life: the national campaign of local Agenda 21s in Peru. Environ Urban 10(2):69
Norris F, Stevens S et al (2008) Community resilience as a metaphor, theory, set of capacities, and strategy for disaster readiness. Am J Community Psychol 41(1):127–150
Pelling M (2003) The vulnerability of cities: natural disasters and social resilience, Earthscan, London
Pelling M, High C (2005) Understanding adaptation: what can social capital offer assessments of adaptive capacity? Global Environ Change 15:308–319
Prasad N, Ranghieri F et al (2009) Climate resilient cities: a primer on reducing vulnerabilities to disasters. The World Bank, Washington, DC
Reid H, Alam M et al (2009) Community-based adaptation to climate change: an overview. Particip Learn Action 60:11–34
Scott D, Barnett C (2009) Something in the air: civic science and contentious environmental politics in post-apartheid South Africa. Geoforum 40(3):373–382
UN-Habitat (2007) Enhancing urban safety and security; global report on human settlements 2007. Earthscan, London
Van Ewijk E, Baud I (2009) Partnerships between Dutch municipalities and municipalities in countries of migration to the Netherlands; knowledge exchange and mutuality. Habitat Int 33(2):218–226
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this paper
Cite this paper
Hordijk, M., Baud, I. (2011). Inclusive Adaptation: Linking Participatory Learning and Knowledge Management to Urban Resilience. In: Otto-Zimmermann, K. (eds) Resilient Cities. Local Sustainability, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0785-6_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0785-6_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-0784-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-0785-6
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)