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Article
Publication date: 14 November 2016

Lino Pascal Briguglio

The purpose of this paper is to revise, update and extend the economic vulnerability and economic resilience indices, where economic vulnerability is associated with inherent…

2361

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to revise, update and extend the economic vulnerability and economic resilience indices, where economic vulnerability is associated with inherent exposure to external shocks and economic resilience with policies that enable a country to minimize or withstand the negative effects of such shocks. This study also proposes a revised vulnerability/resilience framework to assess the risk of a country being harmed by external economic shocks.

Design/methodology/approach

The methodology used in the study involves defining economic vulnerability in terms of inherent features of an economy and defining economic resilience in terms of policy-induced changes, and then devising measureable indices to measure such vulnerability and resilience across countries. The exercise required the examination of various global indices to assess their suitability, in terms of relevance and country coverage, for measuring the vulnerability index and the resilience index and the components of the two indices.

Findings

The main finding of the study is that a number highly vulnerable states, including economically successful small island economies, emerged with high resilience scores, suggesting that they adopt policies that enable them to withstand the harmful effects of external shocks. This possibly explains why these states register relatively high GDP per capita, in spite of their high exposure to shocks. On the other hand, a number of countries, mostly large and poor developing countries, that are not highly exposed to external shocks due to their limited dependence on external trade, emerged with a low degree of policy-induced economic resilience.

Research limitations/implications

The study utilized global indicators which sometimes had missing data and these had to be filled in using approximations based on assumptions, and alternative assumption could have produced a different approximations. In addition the classification of countries in terms of the vulnerability and resilience nexus depended highly on many underpinning assumptions, including the definitions and the measurement of the components, the weighting schemes and the thresholds used. It is likely that alternative assumptions would yield alternative classifications.

Practical implications

An important practical implication of this study is that highly economically vulnerable states can reduce the harmful effects of external economic shocks if they adopt policies that lead to resilience building. On the other hand, countries that are not highly exposed to external shocks, can render themselves economically unstable due to their weak economic, social and environmental governance.

Social implications

This study considers social development and cohesion as one of the pillars of resilience building. The implication of this approach is that social governance, leading to improvements in the education and health of the population could reduce the harm arising from a country’s exposure to external shocks. This is because social governance affects the extent to which relations within a society are properly developed, enabling an effective functioning of the economic apparatus without the hindrance of civil unrest.

Originality/value

This study has extended previous work on the vulnerability and resilience framework, to include almost all countries of the world, using updated data, and has revised the resilience index to include environmental governance. It has also redefined market flexibility to allow for the downsides of excessive financial riskiness. The revision of vulnerability and resilience indices in the light of new data and their interaction showed more convincingly that economies that are highly economically vulnerable could still register economic success as a result of resilience-conducive policies associated with good economic, political, social and environmental governance.

Details

Journal of Economic Studies, vol. 43 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3585

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 September 2022

Udara Sachinthana Perera, Chandana Siriwardana and Ishani Shehara Pitigala Liyana Arachchi

Infrastructures become critical with the emerging threats triggering through disasters. Sri Lanka is a country with a higher risk of disaster impacts, in which the eye-opening has…

Abstract

Purpose

Infrastructures become critical with the emerging threats triggering through disasters. Sri Lanka is a country with a higher risk of disaster impacts, in which the eye-opening has widened towards mitigating the damages towards critical infrastructures. Based on this, the purpose of this paper is to develop an index that identifies the significance of critical infrastructure resilience.

Design/methodology/approach

From the initial literature survey, disaster resilience is defined as capacity of three stages, absorptive, adaptive and restorative along with ten indicators to measure capacities. Selected indicators were then checked for suitability for scope of the research based on opinions of seven experts. Subsequently, the critical infrastructure resilience index (CIRI) was introduced such that the numerical values for each indicator are aggregated using the Z score method. Statistical relations between the actual impact against disasters and CIRI calculated for administrative regions in Sri Lanka were used as the final step to validate the developed index.

Findings

Resilience index development is presented in this paper with a comprehensive methodology of developing and validation. Further, the case study results imply the weakness and strengths in each resilience capacities, which are important in decision-making.

Research limitations/implications

Unavailability of disaster impact data and centralized data repository were main constrains in the validation process of this research. Hence proxy data was used to validate resilience index in this research.

Originality/value

This research identified and validated a novel approach of defining disaster resilience index for regional decision-making.

Details

International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, vol. 15 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1759-5908

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 7 December 2022

Ahmed Mohammed, Tarek Zayed, Fuzhan Nasiri and Ashutosh Bagchi

This paper extends the authors’ previous research work investigating resilience for municipal infrastructure from an asset management perspective. Therefore, this paper aims to…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper extends the authors’ previous research work investigating resilience for municipal infrastructure from an asset management perspective. Therefore, this paper aims to formulate a pavement resilience index while incorporating asset management and the associated resilience indicators from the authors’ previous research work.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper introduces a set of holistic-based key indicators that reflect municipal infrastructure resiliency. Thenceforth, the indicators were integrated using the weighted sum mean method to form the proposed resilience index. Resilience indicators weights were determined using principal components analysis (PCA) via IBM SPSS®. The developed framework for the PCA was built based on an optimization model output to generate the required weights for the desired resilience index. The output optimization data were adjusted using the standardization method before performing PCA.

Findings

This paper offers a mathematical approach to generating a resilience index for municipal infrastructure. The statistical tests conducted throughout the study showed a high significance level. Therefore, using PCA was proper for the resilience indicators data. The proposed framework is beneficial for asset management experts, where introducing the proposed index will provide ease of use to decision-makers regarding pavement network maintenance planning.

Research limitations/implications

The resilience indicators used need to be updated beyond what is mentioned in this paper to include asset redundancy and structural asset capacity. Using clustering as a validation tool is an excellent opportunity for other researchers to examine the resilience index for each pavement corridor individually pertaining to the resulting clusters.

Originality/value

This paper provides a unique example of integrating resilience and asset management concepts and serves as a vital step toward a comprehensive integration approach between the two concepts. The used PCA framework offers dynamic resilience indicators weights and, therefore, a dynamic resilience index. Resiliency is a dynamic feature for infrastructure systems. It differs during their life cycle with the change in maintenance and rehabilitation plans, systems retrofit and the occurring disruptive events throughout their life cycle. Therefore, the PCA technique was the preferred method used where it is data-based oriented and eliminates the subjectivity while driving indicators weights.

Details

Construction Innovation , vol. 24 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1471-4175

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 25 May 2022

Javad Zahedi, Mahdi Salehi and Mahdi Moradi

The current study aims to identify and classify the financial resilience measurement indices using the intuitive fuzzy approach.

Abstract

Purpose

The current study aims to identify and classify the financial resilience measurement indices using the intuitive fuzzy approach.

Design/methodology/approach

The present study aims to identify and classify firms' indices of financial resilience measurement using the Fuzzy–Delphi combined method and the intuitive fuzzy DEMATEL technique with interval values. For the study and the literature review, 29 financial resilience indices were identified, and 12 were finalised after screening and localisation. Next, the selected indices were classified into two groups of influencing and being influenced, and the significant range of each one was determined. Finally, the executive and research suggestions were presented based on the obtained results.

Findings

The study results indicate a higher significance level of redundancy and visibility in financial resilience.

Originality/value

The present study is the pioneer study to assess, identify and classify the contributing indices to financial resilience.

Details

Benchmarking: An International Journal, vol. 30 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-5771

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 February 2017

Anoop Kumar Sahu, Saurav Datta and S.S. Mahapatra

The purpose of this paper is to develop a multi-level hierarchical framework (evaluation index system) toward evaluating an “appraisement index” from the prospectus of measuring…

1460

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop a multi-level hierarchical framework (evaluation index system) toward evaluating an “appraisement index” from the prospectus of measuring and monitoring resilient performance of the candidate industry.

Design/methodology/approach

In this reporting, vagueness, imprecision, as well as inconsistency associated with subjective evaluation information (aligned with ill-defined assessment indices of SC resilience performance), has been tackled by the application of fuzzy theory.

Findings

Subjective evaluation information (expressed in linguistic term) acquired from the committee of decision makers (called expert group), against different resilience indices/metrics, has been fruitfully explored through the proposed fuzzy-based resilience performance appraisement module. Finally, a case study from an Indian automobile company has been conducted from the perspective of checking effectiveness of the proposed methodology for evaluation of appraisement index indicating SC resilience extent.

Originality/value

This methodology might be successfully applied to help other decision-making problems from the perspective of performance appraisal and benchmarking of candidate alternatives/choices under predefined criteria and subjective evaluation circumstances.

Details

Benchmarking: An International Journal, vol. 24 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-5771

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 October 2020

Abraham Matthew Sagum Carandang, Lessandro Estelito O. Garciano, Osamu Maruyama and Richard De Jesus

Water distribution networks (WDNs) must deliver water to its customers 24/7. Disruption of this important service after a strong seismic event impedes post-disaster activities and…

Abstract

Purpose

Water distribution networks (WDNs) must deliver water to its customers 24/7. Disruption of this important service after a strong seismic event impedes post-disaster activities and poses health and sanitation problems. Hence, WDNs must be able to quickly restore services after the occurrence of a major seismic event. This ability to return the water service can be a metric for resilience. The purpose of this paper is to quantify the resilience by developing a framework that translates various restoration strategies into an improved resilience measure for a multisource WDN.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper used a quantitative risk assessment method in developing the framework for the resilience quantification of WDN. Prim’s algorithm, Horn’s algorithm and maximum slope method are used for the restoration analysis conducted in this study.

Findings

This paper provides resilience indices of the WDN for each repair scenarios. Then, the resilience indices are used to determine the most efficient and optimized repair scenario to restore the hypothetically damaged WDN owing to Level 1 and Level 2 seismic events.

Research limitations/implications

The developed framework of this study only focuses on the robustness, rapidity and resourcefulness properties of resilience.

Practical implications

This study aims to help the water district in the maintenance, repair and evaluation of WDN against seismic events. The results from the study can be used in preparing the disaster management plan of the local water district to repair possible pipelines. This study also serves as a starting point to more complex and comprehensive research about the resilience quantification of WDNs with the consideration of optimal restoration sequence in the future.

Originality/value

The developed framework in the resilience quantification of WDN is original, as it uses optimal restoration strategies to represent the rapidity property of resilience.

Details

International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, vol. 12 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1759-5908

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 25 June 2021

Nishtha Agarwal, Nitin Seth and Ashish Agarwal

The present study aims at developing a model to quantify supply chain resilience as a single numerical value. The numerical value is called resilience index that measures the…

1395

Abstract

Purpose

The present study aims at developing a model to quantify supply chain resilience as a single numerical value. The numerical value is called resilience index that measures the resilience capability of the case company's supply chain. The model calculates the index value based on the interactions between the enablers of supply chain resilience and its dimensions.

Design/methodology/approach

Graph theoretic approach (GTA) is used to evaluate the resilience index for the case company's supply chain. In GTA, the dimensions of resilience enablers and their interdependencies are modelled through a digraph. The digraph depicting the influence of each dimension is converted into an adjacency matrix. The permanent function value of the adjacency matrix is called the resilience index (RI).

Findings

The proposed approach has been illustrated in context of an Indian automobile organization, and value of the RI is evaluated. The best case and the worst-case values are also obtained with the help of GTA. It is noted from the model that strategic level dimension of enablers is most important in contributing towards supply chain resilience. They are followed by tactical and operational level enablers. The GTA framework proposed will help supply chain practitioners to evaluate and benchmark the supply chain resilience of their respective organizations with the best in the industry.

Originality/value

A firm can compare the RI of its own supply chain with other's supply chain or with the best in the industry for benchmarking purpose. Benchmarking of resilience will help organizations in developing strategies to compete in dynamic market scenario.

Details

Benchmarking: An International Journal, vol. 29 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-5771

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 July 2023

Alolote Amadi and Onaopepo Adeniyi

This paper aims to quantitively assess the resilience of residential properties to urban flooding in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and assess whether they vary at spatially aggregated…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to quantitively assess the resilience of residential properties to urban flooding in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and assess whether they vary at spatially aggregated scales relative to the level of flood exposure.

Design/methodology/approach

The study synthesizes theoretical constructs/indicators for quantifying property level resilience, as a basis for measuring resilience. Using a two-stage purposive/stratified randomized sampling approach, 407 questionnaires were sent out to residents of 25 flood-prone areas, to solicit information on the resilience constructs as indicated by the adaptation behaviors of individual households and their property attributes. A principal component analysis approach is used as a mechanism for weighting the indicators, based on which aggregated spatial-scale resilience indices were computed for the 25 sampled areas relative to their levels of flood exposure.

Findings

Area 11 located in the moderate flood zone has the lowest resilience index, while Area 20 located in the high flood zone has the highest resilience index. The resilience indices for the low, moderate and high flood zone show only minimal and statistically insignificant differences indicating maladaptation even with incremental levels of flood exposure.

Practical implications

The approach to resilience measurement exemplifies a reproducible lens through which the concept of “living with floods” can be holistically assessed at the property level while highlighting the nexus of the social and technical dimensions.

Originality/value

The study moves beyond theoretical conceptualization, to empirically quantify the complex concept of property-level flood resilience.

Details

International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1759-5908

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 September 2019

Osamuede Odiase, Suzanne Wilkinson and Andreas Neef

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the resilience of the South African community in Auckland to a potential hazard event.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the resilience of the South African community in Auckland to a potential hazard event.

Design/methodology/approach

The research collected data from both primary and secondary sources. The research used parametric and non-parametric analytical procedures for quantitative data and a general inductive approach to qualitative data analysis and a three-step coding cycle for interviews. A content analytical process of theme formation was used to analyse secondary materials. The research discussed findings in line with related studies on community resilience.

Findings

The aggregate community resilience index was above average on the scale of 1–5. The highest and lowest contributions to the resilience of the South African community came from communication and information and physical capacities of the community. Although the highest contribution came from the communication domain, there is a need to sensitise the community on the importance of real-time information for resilience. Community ability to respond as a first responder and to access diverse sources was low because of a lack of interest in disaster risk reduction activities and membership of associations. Intervention in the economic domain and affordable housing is needed to assist low-income earners in coping with a potential disaster and enhance future resilience.

Research limitations/implications

The practical resilience of the community is limited to the time of this research. The state of resilience might change in longitudinal research due to changes in resources and ecosystem. The research did not consider institutional and natural domains because its focus was to predict resilience at the individual level.

Practical implications

At-risk societies could enhance their resilience through a periodic audit into its resources, identify indicators of low resilience and carry out interventions to address potential vulnerabilities. Besides the importance of resource in resilience, the research illuminates the need to address the question of who is resilient and resources distribution in the community. The issues are imperative in community resilience as they underpinned the personal ability to preparedness, response and recover from a disaster.

Originality/value

Although the research provides insight into the resilience of the South African community, it constitutes preliminary research towards a further understanding of the resilience of the South African community in Auckland.

Details

Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, vol. 29 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0965-3562

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 22 September 2020

Sotirios A. Argyroudis, Giorgos Nasiopoulos, Nikolaos Mantadakis and Stergios Aristoteles Mitoulis

Transport infrastructure resilience is of paramount importance for societies, therefore its quantification is urgently needed. A resilience assessment framework based on…

Abstract

Purpose

Transport infrastructure resilience is of paramount importance for societies, therefore its quantification is urgently needed. A resilience assessment framework based on well-informed resilience indices is presented and applied for assessing the resilience of representative bridges exposed to earthquakes.

Design/methodology/approach

The framework quantifies the robustness of bridges against different seismic hazard scenarios, by using realistic fragility functions and the rapidity of the recovery and/or retrofitting after the occurrence of a certain degree of damage, based on realistic restoration functions.

Findings

Two different approaches for the modeling of the restoration tasks are examined. Both direct losses due to structural damage and indirect losses due to traffic disruption are estimated.

Originality/value

A new cost-based resilience index is introduced and alternate approaches for expressing the restoration strategies are examined and assessed. The results facilitate owners to enhance cost-based resilience management toward more resilient infrastructure.

Details

International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, vol. 12 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1759-5908

Keywords

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