Publications

The concept of urban resilience has developed in a multifaceted manner over time with pilots, experiences and lessons of past incidences. Urban resilience encompasses adaptation to risk dynamics and business continuity coupled with sustained improvement towards meeting development needs of the city, in the backdrop of climate change and related disaster risks. Cities are predominately characterized by dense habitation, infrastructure, businesses and fast-paced human activities. The peri-urban areas serve the cities through supporting capacities - ecosystem services, rural-urban connect and input-output systems- and assimilating capacities towards urban discharge and waste.

There are three key dimensions of environmental changes- climate change, land-use changes and natural resource degradation- that are also known as disaster risk drivers. Ecosystems as a critical and common component across the three dimensions and peri-urban areas as ecosystem support systems of cities have attained importance in city and regional development dynamics. Ecosystems that offer nature-based solutions (NBS) also known as green infrastructure may help reduce the risks of grey infrastructure and serve as livelihood support systems for select communities and entrepreneurs. Ecosystem services are also important in reducing social, economic and health-related vulnerabilities.