This article in HSWire reviews a new book from the NAS. See: Measuring progress toward resilience more effectively

The article contains the link to the NAS site where you can download a free copy. A summary and the full book are available for download.

Review of RESILIENCE BONDS: A BUSINESS-MODEL FOR RESILIENT INFRASTRUCTURE by Shalini Vaijhala and James Rhodes, re:focus partners, 2018/
Source: https://www.institut.veolia.org/en/resilience-bonds-business-model-resilient-infrastructure

Reviewer: Jasper Cooke

This article outlines a financial strategy to help facilitate greater investment in mitigation, called a Resilience Bond. These bonds are designed to solve the challenge of investing in mitigation when the benefits are uncertain and would occur far into the future.

What are Resilience Bonds and how do they address this problem? Simply put, they are a form of insurance. They build on the idea of Catastrophe Bonds (Cat Bonds), which are much more like “insurance policies and not traditional municipal bonds.” They usually differ from traditional insurance in that once disaster losses reach a pre-set level, the Cat Bonds immediately pay out. Resilience Bonds include the addition that if a community implements a mitigation project that quantifiably reduces the risk to the insured property (and therefore the likelihood that the Cat Bond will ever have to pay out), then the ‘sponsor’ of the Resilience Bond (i.e. the person looking to reduce their own risk) will get a premium reduction.

To use an analogy from the authors, “If Catastrophe Bonds are similar to life insurance policies that only pay out when the worst disasters strike, then Resilience Bonds are more like progressive health insurance programs that provide incentives to make healthy choices—quitting smoking or exercising regularly—that reduce long-term risks and the cost of care.”

While the market for Cat Bonds is estimated at $30 billion annually and growing, the authors also lay out some challenges before issuance of the first Resilience Bond. For example, responsibility for public assets is often very broad and the process to implement a mitigation project suitable for a Resilience Bond could take years. Since the bond wouldn’t take effect until the project is complete, it can be hard to synchronize the timelines. The authors recommend collaborating both with design and engineering firms, as well as financial partners, so that the project can take advantage of all perspectives early on. Continuing the life insurance analogy, your life insurance company has to find out that you’ve quit smoking to reduce your rate, so these kinds of collaborative discussions are key for all partners to fully appreciate and realize the benefits.

Ultimately the authors hope that Resilience Bonds will help further increase the number of mitigation investments both by creating a direct financial incentive and by creating a broader quantified understanding of risk and risk reduction benefits. In my view, they are right. Resilience bonds make sense and, as long as catastrophe bonds continue to increase in popularity, resilience bonds will also continue to grow in potential utility. Better understanding of risk is key to any comprehensive national or local program to reduce it, along with clear responsibility for the range of risks a community faces, and resilience bonds can directly address these areas.

Article in HSNwire: Lessons from Extreme Weather Events; What Disasters teach us About Resilience.

From Zurich Ins., the direct link to their report: How Hard Lessons Strengthen Resilience Against Disasters.

New document issued by Island Press. See: Resilience Matters Transformative Thinking in a Year of Crisis.  This 145 page report is a free download.

Thanks to Ed Thomas, Natural Hazards Mitigation Assoc., for the citation.

From the Homeland Security Newswire: Resilience: Israeli trauma experts teach resilience in Houston

How social ties make us resilient to trauma.  Excerpt:

Hardening our society is one way to make us more resilient to hazards – that is, to allow us to bounce back from adversity more quickly. But we cannot armor our societies against all threats. Millions of people in cities like Boston, Mumbai, Ghana, Tel Aviv and Tokyo use public transportation systems, attend concerts, go to parks, visit malls and walk in public daily. All of these locations are vulnerable to those who would do us harm, and we cannot police them all. Further, protecting against one type of physical threat, such as an active shooter, does little to shield society against other types of dangers, such as vehicular attacks. My research on the role of social networks during and after crises provides an alternative approach. Rather than focusing on hardening our physical infrastructure, our societies become more resilient when we deepen and broaden our social infrastructure. Social ties provide emotional support, information and collective action at critical times.

Thanks to Dan Aldrich, the author, for calling this article to my attention.

New resilience study helps governments prevent disaster-related loss

Hurricanes, wildfires, tsunamis, and other disasters cannot be stopped, but countries can plan for them — something some areas of the world seem to do better than others, according to a new study. In the study, thirty-eight factors that affect a country’s resilience were derived from national and international databases, and the researchers used these databases to grade the resilience of each country and continent and develop a comprehensive index that includes indicators such as the number of disasters and their death tolls, as well as an area’s population, infrastructure, economy and educational system