Context
Many challenges in managing multi-hazards and multi-risks within complex risk landscapes—where numerous stakeholders with different priority needs and risk perceptions interact—remain unresolved. Stefan Hochrainer-Stigler (IIASA) and colleagues suggest ways forward how to tackle these pressing challenges in an integrated and comprehensive manner by applying key concepts from systemic risk research to triple- and multiple-dividend approaches.
Key findings
- Unlike the Triple Resilience Dividends (TRD), which separates benefits into three fixed categories, the Multiple Resilience Dividends (MRD) approach – which builds on it – looks at the full range of effects an investment in resilience can have. This results in a more comprehensive understanding of the real impact that an intervention may have across scales, sectors and stakeholders.
- For a clear understanding of resilience interventions, it is important to clearly define the system boundaries, as something might lead to a positive outcome in one context but could be less effective if looked at using different system boundaries.
- Systemic risk thinking helps by focusing on the interconnections between systems. Since risks and benefits can spread across sectors and scales, recognizing eventual interdependencies is fundamental to better assessing both the direct and indirect effects of such interventions.
- These connections can vary depending which systems are making the decisions, and they may not always match across systems. In this sense, the toolbox approach—one that draws on various models and types of evidence to suit specific needs – can support dividends analysis of different options in a comprehensive manner.
Implications
When assessing resilience dividends, engaging diverse stakeholders’ perspectives across different systems is crucial to ensure that various dividends are considered. In this way, risk reduction strategies and options to enhance resilience can be designed in an overall societal benefits optic. Authors highlight the need for further research to refine methods for quantifying resilience dividends and to develop tools that support systems-based decision-making in risk assessment and management.
References
Hochrainer-Stigler S., Mechler R., Higuera Roa O., et al. Understanding multiple resilience dividends and system boundaries in disaster- and climate-risk management: a systems approach for enhanced decision-making. In Environmental Research Letters, 20, 044026.
