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The lessons learned from the 2004 tsunami phenomenon fueled the government and other local authorities to strengthen the legitimate background to mitigate such devastation in future events. This study aims to propose a standardized tsunami-resilient construction guideline for Sri Lanka by integrating existing local and international standards.

A comprehensive literature survey was carried out to undertake the study, with a wide-ranging content and thematic analysis of existing tsunami-resilient construction aspects in Sri Lanka. Integrating all existing guidelines with international standards, finally, a consolidated guideline with significant tsunami-resilient building aspects was proposed for stakeholders involved with the resilient built environment in tsunami-prone areas, particularly during the building construction in the coastal belt.

The existing tsunami-resilient guidelines in Sri Lanka follow similar aspects but in different dimensions. Compared to the international standards, few significant aspects create a gap in local guidelines. Thus, the findings demonstrated that the existing local guidelines must be modified and strengthened by mainstreaming into international practices.

Existing guidelines are more concerned with structural aspects. Nevertheless, proper integration of local and international guidelines would be more favorable to minimizing existing local guidelines’ gaps. Further, a standardized tsunami-resilient building guideline would be a referring document for all stakeholders in tsunami-resilient constructions.

By aligning local guidelines with international standards, the reliability of the guidelines will be increased and direct the built environment to quality disaster-resilient constructions.

Through a standardized guideline, the community can rely on tsunami-resilient construction in coastal cities.

The consolidated guideline further contains the essentials of city resilience in tsunamis and would be an excellent reference for relevant stakeholders than aligning with several guidelines.

Driven by the New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, decision makers have been striving to reorientate policy debates towards the aspiration of achieving urban resilience and monitoring the effectiveness of adaptive measures through the implementation of standardised indicators. Consequently, there has been a rise of indicator systems measuring resilience. This paper aims to argue that the ambition of making cities resilient does not always make them less vulnerable, more habitable, equitable and just.

Using an inductive policy analysis of ISO standard 37123:2019 “Sustainable cities and communities — Indicators for resilient cities”, the authors examine the extent to which the root causes of risks are being addressed by the urban resilience agenda.

The authors show that the current standardisation of resilience fails to adequately address the political dimension of disaster risk reduction, reducing resilience to a management tool and missing the opportunity to address the socio-political sources of risks.

Such critical analysis of the Standard is important as it moves away from a hazard-centric approach and, instead, permits to shed light on the socio-political processes of risk creation and to adopt a more nuanced and sensitive understanding of urban characteristics and governance mechanisms.

Conceptual interpretations of sustainability and resilience are widening with discursive use and altering the relationship and understanding of both concepts. By using three city case studies in the USA, this paper aims to consider which conceptual interpretations are operational and what is being measured in the context of city policy, municipal planning and built environment practice. With increasing pressures of urbanisation, it is imperative to consider which conceptual interpretations of resilience and sustainability are being measured in frameworks for the built environment if Risk-Informed Sustainable Development across multiple sectors is to be delivered.

Three case studies with semi-structured interviews have been thematically analysed to explore how sustainability and resilience have been operationalised at policy, planning and practice levels.

City policies, municipal planning and practitioners are working with different interpretations. Collectively Risk Informed Sustainable Development is not formally recognised. Policies recognise GHG reductions and natural hazard events; planning guidance stipulates Environmental Impact Assessments based on legal requirements; and practitioners consider passive-survivability and systematic thinking. Across the sectors, the Leadership in Environmental and Energy Assessment Method provides a common foundation but is used with varying requirements.

Decision-makers should incorporate risk-informed sustainable development, update codes of practice and legal requirements leading to exemplary practice becoming normalised.

Passive-survivability should be affordable and adopt risk-informed sustainable development principles.

Three US city case studies with data collected from interviews have been analysed simultaneously at policy, planning and practice levels. Interrelated implications have been outlined on how to improve decision-making of sustainability and resilience across sectors.

Despite striving for resilience and a sustainable urban future, European cities face a multitude of crisis caused by both natural and human-induced risks. This paper asks two key questions: How have cities experienced and managed crises situations they encountered? and What are the plans and actions for embedding sustainability at a local level within a clear decision-making structure? Hence, it aims to examine urban resilience in the context of urban crisis and the associated health concerns that took place because of crisis situations, while identifying sustainable urban development initiatives and strategies that were conceived and implemented beyond crisis.

An evidence-based analytical approach is undertaken following two lines of inquiry. The first is case-based and identifies 11 cities that have experienced crisis situations and a further 10 cities that have instigated urban resilience strategies. The second is theme-based and engages with identifying strategies relevant to sustainable urban development at city and project levels. The outcomes of the two lines of inquiry are verified by mapping the lessons learned from the analysis to recent international guidance and a further co-visioning workshop with 6 experts.

The evidence-based analysis reveals key lessons which were classified under two primary types of findings: (a) lessons learned for a future urban resilience resulting from the 1st line of Inquiry (case-based) and (b) lessons learned for a future sustainable urban development resulting from the 2nd line of inquiry (theme-based). The verified lessons provide four areas that can be utilised as key priorities for future urban resilience and sustainable urban development including (a) Governance, effective communication, and decision making for city resilience and urban sustainability; (b) the social dimension of resilience and participatory practices for sustainable urban development; (c) from implicit strategies for health to positive impact on health; and (d) diversification of initiatives and localisation of sustainable development endeavours.

There is always limitation on what a bibliometrics analysis can offer in terms of the nature of evidence and the type of knowledge generated from the investigation. This limitation manifests in the fact that the analysis engages with the body of knowledge but not based on engaging physically or socially with the contexts within which the cases took place or through empirical investigations including systematic observations, focused interviews, and attitude surveys. While the study does not generate empirical findings, the rigour of the bibliometrics analysis offers a credible and reliable evidence on how cities experienced and managed crises situations and their current plans and priority actions for embedding and localising sustainable development measures.

This research conveys significant implications for policy, practice, and action in that it crystalises the view that understanding urban resilience and sustainability, at the city or urban level, requires coupling the two. The findings offer a solid foundation for a more contextualised, evidence-based examination of urban resilience and sustainability during and beyond crisis. Highlighting urban and health challenges that emerged from experienced crisis situations, how these were managed and developing an understanding of sustainable urban development and local resilience strategies elucidate insights that can be adopted and acted upon by city councils and built environment practitioners.

The analysis provides comprehensive insights into urban resilience and sustainable urban development at both city and continental Europe scales in the form of key lessons that represent the first step towards developing rudiments for building a better urban future. Little is known about resilience and sustainability at these scales. The originality of this work lies in the breadth and depth for capturing an inclusive understanding of urban resilience and sustainable urban development based on systematic inquiry and scrutinising the body of knowledge emerged over the past 2 decades.

This paper aims to examine the unique Chinese context by analyzing the city labels (e.g. smart city and eco city) used by Chinese local governments at or above the provincial capital level to represent themselves (adopted city labels) and the developmental pathways they actually pursued (adopted developmental pathways).

The authors compared the city brand choices to those anticipated based on their geographic and economic contexts (predicted city labels and developmental pathways) as well as the directives outlined in national planning documents (imposed city labels and developmental pathways). The authors identified ten main categories of city labels used to designate themselves and establish the frequency of their use based on municipal plan documents, economic and geographic data and national plan documents and policy reports, respectively.

The authors discovered that both local economic development and geographic factors, as well as top-down administrative influences, significantly impact city branding strategies in the 38 Chinese cities studied. When these models fall short in predicting adopted city labels and pathways, it is often because cities favor a service-oriented reputation over a manufacturing-focused one, and they prefer diverse, multifaceted industrial images to uniform ones.

The originality and value of this paper lie in its contribution to the academic literature on city branding by developing a predictive model for brand development at the municipal level, with explicit attention to the national-local nexus. The paper’s approach differs from existing research in the first cluster of city branding by not addressing issues of stakeholder involvement or adoption and implementation processes. Additionally, the paper’s focus on the political power dynamics at the national level and urban governance details at the municipal level provides a unique perspective on the topic. Overall, this paper provides a valuable contribution to the field of city branding by expanding the understanding of brand development and its impact on the socioeconomic environment.

One of the best ways to assist China is through infrastructure investment. China might become more resilient to natural calamities by pouring more money into its transport network. Analyzing the relationship between China's degree of planned expansion and the country's current network of transport hubs can help with city development estimates. A wide range of factors were taken into consideration while evaluating China's dominance and the caliber of its transportation infrastructure. Using a geographical autocorrelation model and a coupling coordination model, the dynamic link between China's adaptability and the caliber of its transportation infrastructure is examined.

China's northwest is underdeveloped in comparison to the southeast, which has a high level of resilience and development of its transportation infrastructure. The relationship between the levels of resilience upheld by China's transport infrastructure is suggested to be coordinated.

The authors find a positive geographical autocorrelation between the degree of coupling coordination and the degree of agglomeration, despite the fact that the distance between cities increases with time. They now believe that there is a connection between an area's population density and the degree of interspousal cooperation within. The consequence is an improvement in both national security and economic prosperity. The facilities for disaster management and transportation in China have received several proposals for improvement.

The authors' Practical Implications suggests that scale inefficiency is a major contributor to the relatively poor efficiency of China's primary inland river ports. Different types of inland river ports may have vastly different water system efficiencies. Input and output congestion at China's important interior river ports has reached 51%, making it very clear that massive amounts of valuable port resources are being wasted.

Many variables, such as climate and human error, affect the total amount of goods that can be moved via inner river ports. Ports situated either higher up or lower down the same canal may perform better or worse, respectively, depending on the circumstances.

Despite city authorities in Bangladesh being concerned about urban sustainability, they often face difficulties in addressing predominant urban challenges threatening urban sustainability, due to limited relevant literature. To reduce this gap, this study aims to address the predominant urban challenges and assess their severity levels in four city corporations of Bangladesh, e.g. Rajshahi, Sylhet, Barishal, and Gazipur.

Using a mixed-method approach, this study rigorously analyzed field-level data obtained from 1,200 residents across selected cities using diverse statistical techniques. The quantitative analysis included descriptive analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and chi-square tests, whereas qualitative insights were derived through thematic analysis.

The study uncovered nine predominant urban challenges under two crucial factors “Feeble Urban Management” and “Illicit Activities” that collectively explain 62.20% variance. “Feeble Urban Management” explains 44.17% variance, whereas “Illicit Activities” accounts for 18.13%. Within these challenges, uncontrolled urban sprawl, inadequate disaster management, congested roads, and shabby drainage and waste management pose significant threats to urban sustainability. Illicit activities, manifested by encroachment on water sources, grabbing roadside, destruction of natural properties, and activities undermining social security, compound the urban sustainability issue. Severity analysis reveals Sylhet (54.5%), Rajshahi (46.4%), and Barishal (31.2%) as highly impacted, whereas Gazipur exhibits moderate severity (66.7%).

The findings of this study reveal intrinsic insights into urban challenges in Bangladesh that will provide valuable guidance to city authorities, equipping them to implement integrated and effective initiatives and programs that overcome these predominant urban challenges, with a specific focus on Rajshahi, Sylhet, and Barishal city corporations.

Critical infrastructures (CIs) are essential components of the built environment. They ensure the interconnectivity and good operability of any major urban environment. CIs are exposed to several disruptions such as natural events, hazards or threats that may disturb their normal functionality. These disruptions may impact societies not only from a socio-economic perspective but also environmentally. Therefore, ensuring the resilience of CIs is crucial to modern cities. This paper aims to explore the main standards and criteria used to assess the resilience of CIs.

A three-stage systematic review process was adopted to retrieve relevant papers. A total of 44 papers were carefully selected, and the content analysis technique was used to thoroughly analyse the papers.

Results show that researchers’ interest to investigate the assessment criteria of CIs resilience increased after 2004. Further, a total of 28 resilience criteria of CIs were identified, of which the most reported ones are organisational resilience; performance loss, disruption and recovery process; resilience metrics and index; safety, security and risk analysis; societies/communities’ resilience and/or social-equity responsibility; dynamic networks connectivity; resilience through design and structural integrity; and economic resilience.

The findings of this research will serve as a solid foundation for the development of hypothesis for future empirical studies into the development of assessment criteria index for CI resilience. Further, the outcomes will contribute to the ongoing international discussions and debate on the appropriate ways to develop CI resilience.

Floods are among the most frequent urban disasters in cities of the global south where capacity and resource limitations collude with rapid urbanization to force many poor people to live in flood prone settlements. This paper investigated the impact of flood disasters on social resilience of low-income communities in Mzuzu City, Malawi.

Using a quantitative design, 345 households were interviewed in Zolozolo West and Mzilawaingwe Wards in Mzuzu City. The survey instrument achieved a 100% response rate. A reliability test using Cronbach’s alpha showed internal consistency of survey instrument at 0.711 for Zolozolo West Ward and 0.730 for Mzilawaingwe Ward.

Out of the eleven indicators of social resilience used in this study, six indicators showed no correlation with the outcome expectancy of social resilience. Of the five indicators that showed relationship with social resilience, only improvisation and inventiveness (r_s = 0.356, p = 0.000 at two-tailed, n = 213; r_s = 0.610, p = 0.000 at two-tailed, n = 132) had a strong relationship with the outcome expectancy of social resilience.

The study was only conducted in two settlements; caution should be observed when generalizing the results.

Practitioners should ensure that social resilience strengthening mechanisms are incorporated in flood risk management as they strive to achieve SDG 11 of making cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

The study showed how floods can negatively impact the social resilience of low-income communities, which is different from common knowledge that floods can enhance community social resilience.