How the tool might be used
The assessment framework is designed as a holistic appraisal tool which can identify problem areas where further in-depth policy analysis is required. For example if lack of public transport provision was identified as a key problem; comparative institutional analysis could determine which cities have high public transport provision, what policy interventions were used to achieve that and their application to New Zealand settlements. Cost benefit analysis can determine most efficient options for public transport provision, and implementation analysis could assess the steps and risks that need to be addressed in public transport policy implementation. The resilience assessment can also be used as a monitoring framework to evaluate over time, whether the settlement is increasing or decreasing resilience and vulnerability.
The framework could be adapted to replace peak oil and climate change with other risks but the adaptive capacity questions and measures would remain the same.
Some of the suggested indictors can be mapped spatially including ‘Area development in flood zones or areas under risk of coastal storm surges and inundation’, ‘or household travel to work transport mapped against social deprivation index. This allows identification of geographic areas of vulnerability and community resilience.
The tool needs to be first peer reviewed and then trialed and evaluated by a council in order to test its relevance and ease of application. Some limitations, potential data problems and potential for further development are evident and are outlined in 6.2.
Limitations and potential further development of tool
No minimum thresholds are given. It is not evident in the literature how minimum thresholds would be easily or generically set, particularly as we are dealing with pressures which impact settlements in ways which have not been experienced by before. More research is needed to enhance understanding around the levels of adaptation and adaptability required to respond to these pressures.
Limited access to some data; Effort has been made to select measures where there is easily accessed data. However some data is only collected at a national scale and is difficult to disaggregate to regional and sub-regional scales. While important, some questions and related measures have been excluded from the framework at this time, but should be seen as national resilience indicators. They include;
- Fossil fuel consumption (oil, gas, coal) decoupling from GDP – (Statistics NZ)
- Is our transport use decoupling from GDP? (Total C02 emissions per unit GDP and per capita)
- Are our CO2 emissions reducing and are we decoupling our economic activities from environmental impact?) (OECD)[1]
- Is our business energy use decreasing? (StatsNZ Business energy use survey[2])
- Is the greentech sector and the number of sustainable innovations growing? (data not found)
Data from the Quality of Life survey[3] has been utilized in the framework, but this survey only covers 16 councils[4] in New Zealand (although this does represent the majority of urban settlements in New Zealand). The Councils of cities and towns not included would need to invest in becoming included in the two yearly surveys; however this is likely to be more economic than carrying out their own local surveys. Lastly some measures are not found in any existing surveys, and would need to be carried out by the councils doing the assessments. This is particularly so for institutional and social characteristics associated with foresight, integrated planning, knowledge management and the ability to comprehend the likelihood of significant change.
Developing the tool to better understand cross scale influences; Socio-ecological and community disaster literature stress the need to identify cross scale influences to fully understand and manage resilience. This framework currently has limited multi-scale analysis. Further work would be beneficial to develop a more comprehensive toolbox which could assess urban resilience at different scales household through to region.
Next section; Conclusion
[1] OECD 2002 Indicators to measure decoupling of environmental pressures from economic growth.
[2] Statistics New Zealand 2009 Business Energy Use Survey Retrieved September 2010 from www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/industry_sectors/Energy/EnergyUseSurvey_MR2009.aspx
[3] Quality of Life Survey 2008 National Report. ACNielsen. Prepared for the Quality of Life Project team. Accessed October 2010 from www.bigcities.govt.nz/
[4] The councils surveyed are Auckland, Manukau, North Shore, Waitakere, Rodney, Papakura, Wellington, Hutt, Wairarapa, Kapiti, Upper Hutt, Porirua, Christchurch City, Hamilton, Tauranga, and Dunedin Councils.