Europe is in the process of adjusting its development models to being capable of sustaining societal well-being and prosperity. Ambitious programmes like the European Green Deal are being implemented to support this whilst, at the same time, all levels of organisation and governance are facing the challenge of having to respond to a changing landscape of risks, which add complexity to our urbanised socio-economic systems.
Extreme weather events and other challenges are increasing both in magnitude and in frequency. Science is clear that this is not a temporary situation. The broader picture shows that mitigation efforts alone will not be enough to sustain the desired European well-being and prosperity. Quality of life will be dependent on how well the adaptation agenda is accepted and implemented over coming decades. Disaster preparedness and societal resilience are therefore of increasing relevance to local decision makers.
The European Commission is strongly supporting a paradigm shift from ‘risk to resilience thinking’, which is increasingly declared as a national priority by individual member states. The RESILOC Project was funded by the European Commission to innovate a solution that also empowers local and regional levels of governance as contributors to the development agenda by ‘improving
on the processes for a better preparedness of communities against disasters and better support European and international policies on resilience in societies’.
To achieve this the project took 42 month to i) Increase the understanding of resilience in societies and local communities, ii) Innovate on the strategies for improving resilience, iii) Innovate on tools and solutions for improving resilience iv) Communicate, demonstrate and assess the validity of approaches, solutions and tools in field trials, v) Have an impact and define concrete steps towards a more resilient society.
