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Arup launches a tool for city resilience

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Marina Miceli Marina Miceli Europe Press Office,London
29 April 2014

On 11 April at the seventh World Urban Forum (WUF7) in Colombia, Arup launched The City Resilience Framework, a tool to understand the complexity of cities and the factors which contribute to resilience can be understood and measured in order to shape urban planning, practice and investment.

This initiative, supported by The Rockefeller Foundation comprises 12 indicators that equate to a city’s immune system. Collectively, they enable people to survive and thrive, and businesses to prosper whichever shocks and stresses may occur. We developed this tool after thorough fieldwork in Cali, Colombia, and Santiago, Chile.

Resilience is the ability of cities and communities to deal with shocks and stresses caused by issues including food, water and energy security, climate change, disease, urbanisation and social unrest.

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At the moment city resilience isn’t a term that’s very widely used or even understood. But it’s central to the wellbeing of urban communities, the natural and built environment and economy. We can’t underestimate the importance of building resilience. ” Jo Da Silva Arup Jo da Silva Director

In the last decades, urban risk has not only been rising, but it has also been increasingly unpredictable due to the complexity of city systems and the uncertainty associated with many hazards – notably climate change. Risk assessments and measures to reduce specific foreseeable risks will continue to play an important role in urban planning. But cities also need to be resilient so as to be able to accommodate the unexpected. 

Parallel to the development of this tool, we also conducted a study for the International Federation of Red Cross about aspects and main features of safe and resilient communities in Latin America and the Caribbean. The study included fieldwork in over 23 rural communities in Colombia (Tolima, Nariño and La Guajira among others), Guatemala and St. Lucia.

View more information on our involvement at WUF7.