59 research outputs found
Maine State Government Administrative Report 2015-2016
https://digitalmaine.com/me_annual_reports/1042/thumbnail.jp
Maine State Government Administrative Report 2018-2019
https://digitalmaine.com/me_annual_reports/1045/thumbnail.jp
Bridging the Gap
The concept of resilience has arisen as a “new way of thinking”, becoming a response to both the causes and effects of ongoing global challenges. As it strongly stresses cities’ transformative potential, resilience’s final purpose is to prevent and manage unforeseen events and improve communities’ environmental and social quality. Although the resilience theory has been investigated in depth, several methodological challenges remain, mainly related to the concept’s practical sphere. As a matter of fact, resilience is commonly criticised for being too ambiguous and empty of meaning. At the same time, turning resilience into practice is not easy to do. This will arguably be one of the most impactful global issues for future research on resilience. The Special Issue “Bridging the Gap: The Measure of Urban Resilience” falls under this heading, and it seeks to synthesise state-of-the-art knowledge of theories and practices on measuring resilience. The Special Issue collected 11 papers that address the following questions: “What are the theoretical perspectives of measuring urban resilience? What are the existing methods for measuring urban resilience? What are the main features that a technique for measuring urban resilience needs to have? What is the role of measuring urban resilience in operationalising cities’ ability to adapt, recover and benefit from shocks?
A Multidisciplinary Analysis of Coastal Storms in Western Britain, 1800-2020
This multidisciplinary study combines environmental science and environmental history to improve storm understanding in Western Britain from 1800 to 2020. Storms have persistently impacted coastal communities, infrastructure and environments in this region and climate change is predicted to increase storm threats and impacts.
A sedimentological study analysed saltmarsh storm impacts in Carmarthen Bay. High magnitude storm surge deposition in 1954, 1977 and 1981 was identified through sedimentological, meteorological and tidal gauge analyses. The results show storm surges irregularly contributed to sustaining saltmarsh elevation suggesting the value of continued research into saltmarsh storm impacts.
An archival newspaper analysis produced a comprehensive original storm database from 1800 to 2020. Three environmental history investigations followed.
The first investigation analysed a major storm using the concept of storm subcultures. The 1859 Royal Charter Storm and the ensuing developments in storm prediction were analysed. Storm catastrophes were shown to evoke long-term social, political and cultural responses. The event changed storm understanding and prediction with long-term community and governance implications. The analysis highlighted the importance of inclusive decision making and adaptive storm subcultures.
The second study employed statistical and qualitative newspaper analyses of written storm representations from 1800 to 1953. Rapidly declining religious storm interpretations and progressively increasing scientific interpretations reflected changing beliefs in Britain. The analysis showed that epistemological change profoundly affected public storm representations and understandings.
A contemporary study analysed meteorological, tidal gauge and newspaper data from Storms Ciara and Dennis. While the storms were climate anomalies and the short-term response was effective, shortcomings in long-term climate change-related government policies likely enhanced vulnerability and therefore policy adaptation was recommended.
Multidisciplinary research ultimately improves the understanding of the often interconnected community and environmental storm impacts and can inform inclusive and effective response. Further multidisciplinary research can therefore contribute towards enhancing resilience to increasing storm threats
Climate Adaptation and Resilience Across Scales
Climate Adaptation and Resilience Across Scales provides professionals with guidance on adapting the built environment to a changing climate. This edited volume brings together practitioners and researchers to discuss climate-related resilience from the building to the city scale. This book highlights North American cases that deal with issues such as climate projections, public health, adaptive capacity of vulnerable populations, and design interventions for floodplains, making the content applicable to many locations around the world. The contributors in this book discuss topics ranging from how built environment professionals respond to a changing climate, to how the building stock may need to adapt to climate change, to how resilience is currently being addressed in the design, construction, and operations communities. The purpose of this book is to provide a better understanding of climate change impacts, vulnerability, and resilience across scales of the built environment. Architects, urban designers, planners, landscape architects, and engineers will find this a useful resource for adapting buildings and cities to a changing climate
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