Guest editorial: Challenges of the (anti) adaptive urbanization in multiple scales

Dear Readers,

It gives us great pleasure to edit the Special Issue of the International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment. As the guest editors of this issue, we called researchers to reflect on the questions of what makes regions, localities and urban spatial elements (anti)adaptive. How can the likelihood of urban elements’ adaptability to disasters/stressors be defined? And how can urban elements’ multifunctionality be a resilient response to ongoing changes in nature and human society? What adds multifunctionality to urban elements to boost urban adaptability? In this way, we hoped to shed light on the challenges of (anti)adaptive urban components at the neighborhood and regional levels. This issue looked for the concept of adaptability to propose regenerative and alternative urban development models to conventional urban planning approaches envisioning static urban conditions, departing from the complexity and vulnerability of urban systems to external stressors.

Scholars from around the world contributed to the adaptability debate on a variety of scales. We would like to thank all authors, reviewers, the IJDRBE editorial board and the Emerald Peer Review team for their contributions to the issue’s preparation. At the conclusion of the review process, a total of six articles addressing issues of urban resilience, risk assessment and disaster management on multiple scales were accepted for publication.

The first paper, “Population resilience to flooding in the urbanised mangrove of Douala, Cameroon,” was authored by Babette Linda Safougne Djomekui and Aristide Yemmafouo aimed to understand the mechanisms that contribute to the construction of the resilience of populations to urban flooding. They found that the rapid growth of Douala leads to vulnerabilities through the spontaneous occupation of mangrove areas, thus aggravating the impacts of the floods that occur. Afterward, the analysis of the individual and collective responses of the inhabitants of the study area highlighted resilience in action.

The second paper, “An overview of the state of urban resilience in Iran,” was authored by Nabi Moradpour, Ahmad Pourahmad, Hossein Hataminejad, Keramatollah Ziari and Ayyoob Sharifi, presents an overview of the state of urban resilience in Iran. To understand the current state of Iranian cities’ resilience, Moradpour et al. involved different types of disasters and settlements and conducted a systematic review process on the concept of resilience in Iranian and international academic databases. After the identification, screening and eligibility stages, 153 articles were selected. Accordingly, the authors found that Iranian settlements show low physical, socioeconomic, environmental and institutional resilience, particularly in informal settlements and worn-out urban fabrics.

The third paper, “The ‘disaster cycle’ (DC) and actors in disaster management,” was authored by Murat Balamir. Criticizing the conventional graphical expression of cyclical disaster management activities, the author aims to draw attention to a new organizational setup to enhance risk communication. The study reported the shortcomings of conventional assumptions on disaster management and highlighted the necessity of rearrangement in four major domains. In this respect, Balamir calls for rethinking the concepts of macro resilience introduced at the national governance level, emergency management considering specific logistic preparations, case-specific post-disaster rehabilitation efforts and continuous risk reduction activities.

The fourth paper, “A hybrid risk assessment approach for assessing the earthquake risks in worn-out urban fabrics: a case study in Iran,” was authored by Jalal Sadeghi, Mohsen Oghabi, Hadi Sarvari, Mohammad Sediegh Sabeti, Hamidreza Kashefi, Daniel W.M. Chan and Aynaz Lotfata presents a hybrid risk assessment approach for assessing the earthquake risks in worn-out urban fabrics, through a case study in Iran. In the paper, the authors report on a study to propose an innovative and combined method for identifying and prioritizing earthquake risks in Iranian cases. By focusing on the worn-out urban fabrics of Kermanshah city, experts evaluated the intuitionistic fuzzy parameters of the probability of occurrence and impact of risks and prioritized the risks individually. Results show that the age of buildings, destruction of buildings, obstruction of roads and access to emergency services were the main priority risks to be considered by relevant stakeholders.

The fifth paper, “Climatic disasters within a flood-prone coastal slum in Lagos: coping capacities and adaptation prospects,” was authored by Olumuyiwa Bayode Adegun. Taking the case study in Nigeria, the study was designed to show flood adaptation strategies for informal settlements. To discuss the coping policies, Adegun applied semi-structured interviews with 15 residents and a questionnaire to 247 residents. As flood adaptation behaviors, the results showed that citizens developed building-related responses, green infrastructure implications, nonstructural measures and self-help strategies.

The sixth and last paper of the special issue entitled “Urban mix in housing neighborhoods: challenges, evaluation method and diagnosis of Ayouf in Jijel, Algeria” by Ibtissem Hallal and Tayeb Sahnoune. Focusing on the deprived neighborhoods of Algeria, this study aims to promote social interaction and urban mix. Hallal and Sahnoune developed functional, social and spatial indicators regarding the urban mix and conducted a case study in the city of Jijel. Their findings suggest that strict zoning does not favor social interactions in neighborhoods. In contrast, urban mix promotes functional diversity, enhances urban quality and provides a milieu for coexistence and social cohesion.

On August 16th, while we were finalizing the special issue, we learned with great sadness that Prof Murat Balamir had passed away. Prof Balamir began his studies in the Department of Architecture as an undergraduate student and later worked for many years as a faculty member in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Middle East Technical University. He taught urban economics and disaster planning, and he worked on several projects with national and international organizations. He dedicated his efforts, particularly after the 1999 Earthquake, to establishing a modern disaster planning approach in Turkey by authoring several papers and presenting in academic and public domains, supervising his graduate thesis and mentoring young planners. We are deeply saddened by his death, having had the privilege of studying with him. Prof Balamir will be remembered for his outstanding contributions to disaster planning and his efforts to improve the risk management approach to making cities resilient. His warm personality and academic abilities will live on in our hearts.