Resilience and Adaptation to Hydrometeorological Hazards

In this chapter we will discuss the related concepts of resilience and adaptation. This discussion emanates from the on-going EU FP7 emBRACE project which used five case studies across Europe to investigate the role, structure and processes of ‘community resilience’ in the face of flooding, alpine hazards (e.g. avalanche and flash flood), heatwave and earthquake. As emBRACE case studies were (at the time of writing) in the early stages of implementation, the material for this chapter will rely largely on the theoretical analysis undertaken so far (seeemBRACE, 2012a) with the exception of reference to some early pilot studies in northern England. Overall, the focus of the project is to identify any common components or drivers of resilience within the diverse and complex communities studied and to find ways to describe, conceptualise and measure that resilience in ways that will be useful for practitioners in civil protection, communities at risk and academics generally. Our primary focus in the emBRACE project is the community level but we employ the concept in its widest and relational sense; seeing communities inextricably linked to individuals, social groups, organisations and higher geographical and administrative levels (e.g. national, regional, global). In order to argue for a place for resilience and adaptation in discussions focused on the management of hydrometeorological hazards, it is important to first understand what the two terms have been proposed to mean and then, building on this, to elaborate our particular approach.