Reports

• CARRI Research Report 1 - Community and Regional Resilience: Perspectives from Hazards, Disasters, and Emergency Management  - FINAL_CUTTER_9-25-08.pdf

Written by Susan L. Cutter, Lindsey Barnes, Melissa Berry, Christopher Burton, Elijah Evans, Eric Tate and Jennifer Webb from the Hazards & Vulnerability Research Institute

This research paper outlines what makes people and places vulnerable, including location, infrastructure and economic factors; what makes communities resilient, including recognizing and understanding hazards and planning for disaster recover, planning and land use and development, which includes building standards, development regulations, critical public facilities and information dissemination; and barriers to planning for resilience, which looked at federal and state barriers, policies and commitment among governments at all levels.

• CARRI Research Report 2 - Reslience in the Face of Global Environmental Change - Final Moser 11-11-08

Written by Susi Moser with Research and Consulting; Institute of Marine Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz

This report provides relevant insights on resilience from the pertinent global change literature to complement critical insights gleaned from the hazards and ecological literatures by other collaborators to the CARRI project. This study reviews definitions and the emerging understanding of resilience in the social sciences.  It also discusses a number of aspects feeding into resilience, such as vulnerability, adaptive capacity, and social capital.  Lastly, the report points to some promising research frontiers on resilience in the human dimensions field.

• CARRI Research Report 3 - Community Resilience:  Lessons from New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina - FINAL_COLTEN_9-25-08.pdf

Written by Craig Colten from Louisiana State University;  Robert Kates, an independent scholar; and Shirley Laska with the University of New Orleans
 

This report examines the vulnerability and resilience in New Orleans, both throughout its history and after Hurricane Katrina.  The study highlights the anticipation of a major hurricane like Katrina and examines the risks that were not addressed, such as disrupted funding to the Corps of Engineers, which left levees incomplete and construction standards for flooding that were not met. 

Also examined are the problems that arose during and immediately following the crisis, including disrupted communication and transportation; overwhelmed institutional response and confusion; and the inability of aid and funding to reach those in need.  The report also looks at the lessons learned in order to help New Orleans and other communities understand and better prepare themselves for recovery from future disasters.

• CARRI Research Report 4 - Community Resilience: A Social Justice Perspective -  FINAL_MORROW_9-25-08.pdf

This study addresses the key social factors that make a community vulnerable and what needs to be changed in order to become resilient.  The study showes that issues such as economic status, ethnicity, gender and education level play a tremendous role in a community's ability to be resilient, and that a community is only as resilient as its weakest link.  The report shows that in order to change and become resilient, communities must address their education, employment and housing vulnerabilities; find ways to reach high risk populations, which include disseminating information in different languages and at various reading levels, as well as communicating with existing community networks, like women's groups, church networks and communicating to extended families of ethnic minorities through children; and finally, a community must have civic participation at all levels and permanent and sufficient funding sources to be truly resilient.