Planning for Community Resilience: A Handbook for Reducing Vulnerability to Disasters

This timely handbook brings together the fields of planning, disaster response, and hazards management to provide a field-tested process on how to make communities disaster-resilient. How can we plan and design stronger communities? Communities struck by natural disasters struggle to recover long after the first responders have left. Globally, the average annual number of natural disasters has more than doubled since 1980. These catastrophes are increasing in number as well as in magnitude, causing greater damage as we experience rising sea levels and other effects of climate change. Communities can reduce their vulnerability to disaster by becoming more resilient, to not only bounce back more readily from disasters but to grow stronger, more socially cohesive, and more environmentally responsible. To be truly resilient, disaster preparation and recovery must consider all populations in the community. By bringing together natural hazards planning and community planning to consider vulnerabilities, more resilient and equitable communities are achievable. In Planning for Community Resilience the authors describe an inclusive process for creating disaster-resilient communities. This handbook guides any community through the process of determining their level of hazard exposure, physical vulnerability, and social vulnerability with the goal of determining the best planning strategy. This will be an invaluable tool for professionals working to protect communities from disturbance.

这本及时的手册将规划、灾害应对和灾害管理等领域结合起来，提供了一个经过实地检验的关于如何使社区具备抗灾能力的流程。我们如何规划和设计更强大的社区呢？遭受自然灾害的社区在首批救援人员离开很久之后仍难以恢复。从全球来看，自1980年以来，自然灾害的年均数量增加了一倍多。这些灾难在数量和强度上都在增加，随着我们经历海平面上升和气候变化的其他影响，造成的破坏也更大。社区可以通过提高自身的恢复力来降低对灾害的脆弱性，不仅能更容易地从灾害中恢复，还能变得更强大、社会凝聚力更强以及对环境更负责。要真正具备恢复力，灾害预防和恢复必须考虑社区中的所有人群。通过将自然灾害规划和社区规划结合起来考虑脆弱性，就可以实现更具恢复力和更公平的社区。在《社区恢复力规划》中，作者描述了一个创建抗灾社区的包容性流程。这本手册引导任何社区完成确定其灾害暴露程度、物理脆弱性和社会脆弱性的过程，目的是确定最佳的规划策略。对于致力于保护社区免受干扰的专业人员来说，这将是一个非常宝贵的工具。