Conceptualization of Resilience

**3**

**Chapter 1**

**Abstract**

Move from Resilience

Enhancement

flood risk, resistance, vulnerability

Transport and Tourism, Japan [6].

**1. Introduction**

*Guangwei Huang and Juan Fan*

Conceptualization to Resilience

This chapter provides an analysis of various resilience definitions and depicts the differences in definition between engineering, ecological and socio-ecological resilience in an easy-to-understand graphic representation. It also articulates commons and differences between conventional flood risk management and resilience-based flood management and presents a mathematical formulation to facilitate resilience discussion. Furthermore, it highlights some studies and initiatives towards the operationalization of the resilience concept in flood disaster management practice. The most important message this chapter is intended to deliver is that resilience is not just about bouncing back. Indeed, it should be enhanced to bounce forward.

**Keywords:** engineering resilience, ecological resilience, socio-ecological resilience,

Despite decades of research and engineering works on urban flood disaster prevention and reduction, flooding-caused death and economic loss continue to rise. On a global scale, flood disasters affected 2 billion people in the period between 1998 and 2017 [1]. A report by UNISDR [2] revealed that 43% of natural disasters occurred during the period of 1995–2015 were related to floods. These events affected more than half (56%) of all people who suffered from any type of natural disaster with a flood-induced death rate of about 26%. Data from the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) also clearly indicates that flood disaster events have increased significantly in the number over the last decade. On a regional scale, the Expected Annual Damage (EAD) from river flooding reaches €6.4 billion and the Expected Annual Population (EAP) exposure to flooding is about 195.000 people in Europe [3]. Between 2000 and 2005, Europe suffered nine major flood disasters, which caused 155 casualties and economic losses of more than €35 billion [4]. On a national scale, for example, direct flood damages for the water year 2016 totaled US \$57 billion in China [5]. In Japan, a torrential downpour in July 2018 caused 223 deaths and inundated 29,766 houses with the total economic damage as high as 1,158,000,000,000 JPY according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure,

These water-related disasters were not solely caused by natural hazards. Rather,

most of the major risks and disasters are triggered by vulnerable conditions of

## **Chapter 1**
