Urban resilience: different urban services sharing a common vision

The potential effects of climate dynamics on the urban areas involve the aggravation of the existing conditions as well as the occurrence of new hazards or risk factors. Urban areas are dynamic systems that involve multiple service sectors and stakeholders dealing with specific systems such as water supply, wastewater, stormwater, waste, energy, transportation, health. Challenges generated by climate changes in urban areas require an integrated and sustainable approach for dealing with current and expected future levels of risk.

Focusing on the water sector and given the interactions of urban water systems with other urban systems, a resilience building approach should address all constituents of the urban water cycle, their interactions as well as the interaction with other urban services. Therefore, a comprehensive and effective resilience planning needs to adopt an integrated approach that incorporates the interdependencies between systems and requires commitment of all concerned decision makers.

This multisectorial approach brings together different service missions towards a common vision for the city, identifying the specific and independent functioning of the systems and not forgetting the existing dependencies and connections, involving all – individuals, groups, private and public entities – in order to provide the transition of urban areas to strong, safe and sustainable cities.

In the RESCCUE project, Work Package 6 (WP6) led by LNEC will perform a structured diagnosis of resilience in Barcelona, Bristol and Lisbon in order to identify the strengths and weaknesses with the greatest potential for improvement in every city, share success and failure experiences in cases already implemented. Considering the dynamics of the cities, an objective-driven resilience plan will be developed for each city, based on the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) principles for continuous improvement. WP6 will provide general guidelines targeted to any other cities, based on the learnings and outcomes of the demonstration in the RESCCUE cities, aiming to contribute to building resilient cities.