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The purpose of this paper is to explore whether “resilience” offers any positive inputs to international discourse in the field of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation and if so, what recommendations can be made for further research on the topic.

In addition to an in-depth literature review, observations on resilience were made based on interdisciplinary research conducted in Nepal 2008-2011 with landslide affected communities, to map local understandings of resilience in contrast to issues of risk and vulnerability.

Resilience has the potential to offer a more systemic and cross-cutting approach to disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and the humanitarian sector. However, it needs to be assessed critically as one attribute of sustainable development, not as a lesser substitute.

This paper provides new insights to the emerging contrast between proponents and critics of the resilience paradigm with recommendations for avoiding potential dangers that this paradigm brings.

The purpose of this paper is to describe empirical research intended to fill the perceived gap in practical guidance methodologies for assessing resilience.

To do so, an interdisciplinary team of researchers studied landslide risk in four different communities of Central and Eastern Nepal using a case study approach. Two case studies on flood-affected communities were developed for comparison sake in more urban areas. Methods combined qualitative participatory approaches to develop indicators of resilience as well as a household survey and focus group discussions for collecting data on the indicators.

What the research results demonstrate is a relatively straightforward and simple means for obtaining data on the state of a community's resilience as a relatively simple “snapshot” of resilience at one period in time, assuming that resilience is an outcome that can be improved over time with the “right” set of interventions.

The main limitation of this research is that it focussed mainly on outcome indicators; although some process indicators of resilience were identified (i.e. grazing management practices, skills training, organizational skills and learning through education), these need to be more comprehensive and validated through community consultations.

The paper provided data and a straightforward methodology for measuring resilience and has thus contributed to the literature on this topic, while providing practical ideas for future research on resilience building measures and indicators.

The purpose of this paper is to identify how governance and accountability have been addressed in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) 2015-2030.

The research is mainly based on the analysis of the SFDRR; scientific literature, particularly recent publications covering the SFDRR. The paper also takes into account grey literature.

The SFDRR does address issues of governance and accountability in disasters. However, more needs to be done to translate it into practice – particularly with regard to accountability.

The paper covers a topic that has not attracted considerable academic attention, despite the fact that the need to address accountability in disaster risk management, notably in DRR, has been generally acknowledged. By addressing governance and accountability in the most recent international DRR framework the paper adds value to the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a qualitative and exploratory study aimed at learning more about the local forms of resilience that emerged in two localities (one rural and one urban locality) in Talcahuano, Chile, in response to the major earthquake and devastating tsunami that hit them on February 27, 2010.

To ensure that people’s experiences remained leading throughout the study, data were collected in the field by the first author over a period of 13 months using a variety of qualitative methods. The primary methods were observation, participation and semi-structured interviews with a variety of actors, ranging from community members to local leaders and emergency professionals. For the analysis, a scheme was used that categorizes manifested resilience using two dimensions: damage and responsiveness. Since this scheme has been mostly used to evaluate tree populations, it was adapted to fit the appraisal of a social system.

The findings suggest that damage levels in the two communities were similar, but that the responsiveness was not. One locality revealed high levels of resilience, while the other exposed increased susceptibility to future similar events.

This research initiative was relevant because it exposed actual resilience. Also, the specificities of the findings enable insights about prevalent vulnerability, in particular the local capacity of response, and that can be used to elaborate concrete earthquake/tsunami disaster scenarios and design local disaster risk reduction interventions.