Linking the interplay of resilience, vulnerability, and adaptation to long-term changes in metropolitan spaces for climate-related disaster risk management

Abstract

Accelerated urbanization and development in disaster-prone areas have prompted urban authorities to adopt adaptation strategies to improve resilience and vulnerability to climate change and related disasters. Therefore, assessing resilience, vulnerability and their evolution over time becomes crucial in comprehending the dynamics of interactions between resilience, vulnerability, adaptive capacity, and urban spatial changes. Using an empirical study in Taipei Metropolis, Taiwan, we developed a Framework for Metropolitan Resilience-Vulnerability-Adaptation Assessments. This framework integrated spatial statistics with multicriteria decision-making analyses to assess overall resilience and capacities to tackle climate-related disaster risks, as well as their dynamics between the years 2001 and 2016. Our approach further employed resilience and vulnerability change models to explore the connections between adaptive capacities and improvements in resilience and vulnerability over time. Results indicate that low-resilience and high-vulnerability areas are significantly clustered and continue to deteriorate, particularly in fast-growing peri-urban and old-downtown communities. Moreover, comparing the effects of adaptive factors shows that increasing investments in transportation networks, public lands, and infrastructure does not lead to the improvements in resilience and vulnerability in the long-term. This implies that conflicts and trade-offs may exist between certain adaptation options and resilience building efforts. Numerous disaster-proof, public facilities and emergency responses may simply provide short-term benefits and potentially lead to maladaptive outcomes. They create a way to encourage large-scale land development and urban space changes, thereby locking in adaptation pathways focused on short-term resilience improvement, while strengthening the vulnerability loops in the long-term. Our findings provide metropolitan governors and stakeholders valuable insights into formulating more effective adaptive policies that reconcile resilience and vulnerability. They also broaden the scope for urban land use policy-making and metropolitan governance, providing opportunities to mitigate climate-related disaster risks more effectively.