Abstract
Most of the present cities are characterized by low-density urban sprawl, fragile infrastructure, low resilience, and people’s poor coping capability to disasters. Further with the increasing unplanned rapid urbanization, the disasters (in terms of frequency and numbers) and their impacts are increasing, which is primarily associated with badly planned and managed urban development, degraded ecosystems, and poverty. According to a study by the United Nations, almost 890 million people (60 %) across the globe live in cities that are at risk from at least one major natural disaster, including floods, droughts, cyclones, or earthquakes. Disasters eventually wipe off years of development and cause death, injury, economic losses, and environmental and urban systems’ degradation. Since a city is an integration of complicated urban systems like transportation, water supply, sanitation, housing, and other urban infrastructure and services, strengthening these systems will increase the resilience and help in disaster management in urban areas. On the other hand, smart cities use information and communications technology (ICT) to involve people, improve city services, and enhance urban systems which in turn will improve disaster resilience. To make cities disaster resilient right at the inception stage, the efficiency in urban planning can have a major impact on communities’ preparedness and capacities to recover. Smart growth strategies like creating flexible land-use policies, targeting public investment, and engaging the entire community in making decisions can help communities recover from a disaster, rebuild according to a shared community vision, and be better prepared for a disaster. This paper tries to explore through various examples those aspects of smart cities which build and assist in disaster resilience of cities. The study clearly indicates that the relation between smart development and disaster resilience is strong, where the smart growth, smart urbanization (smart grids, eco-cities, compact development), and low-carbon footprint strategies have been used and are some of the most needed consideration to deal with the present scale of disasters in urban areas.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
EPA- and FEMA-collaborated projects under the MoU in 2010 using smart growth as a tool for urban resilience (http://www2.epa.gov/smartgrowth/smart-growth-strategies-disaster-resilience-and-recovery)
- 2.
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) founded in 1901, and now part of the US Department of Commerce, is one of the nation’s oldest physical science laboratories (http://www.nist.gov/disaster-resilience/).
- 3.
Smart Growth America is the American National organization dedicated to researching, advocating for, and leading coalitions to bring smart growth practices to more communities nationwide. It advocates for people who want to live and work in great neighborhoods (http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/issues/transportation/).
- 4.
Emergency Transportation Operations (ETO)—a collective effort among Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) that was launched in 2004, the US Department of Transportation across many cities in the USA
- 5.
Fujitsu Asia Conference—held on November 11, 2014, in Jakarta, Indonesia, aimed at a future vision for Asia using ICT to overcome social challenges in Asian disaster management (http://journal.jp.fujitsu.com/en/2014/11/18/02/)
- 6.
IBM Intelligent Operations Center synchronizes and analyzes information gathered from diverse data-collection systems. It primarily takes initiatives toward Smart Planet initiatives focus on smart innovative solutions (http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/public_safety/nextsteps/solution/M573313P64918R78.html).
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
Operation Fresh Start is a project of the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT). It began in 1997 with support from the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) in response to the 1997 flooding in Red River, North Dakota (http://www.freshstart.ncat.org/articles/enrgsyst.htm).
- 10.
Solar Outreach Partnership (SolarOPs) is a designed solar energy adoption on the local level by providing timely and actionable information to local governments. Funded by the US Department of Energy (DOE) SunShot Initiative, SolarOPs achieves its goals through a mix of educational workshops, peer-to-peer sharing opportunities, research-based reports, and online resources (http://solaroutreach.org/resource/resilienceresourcehub/#.VgOo3N-qqko).
- 11.
The Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS): ITS is the product from the Joint Program Office (JPO), Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA), and the US Department of Transportation (USDOT), by Noblis, Inc., with cooperation from the USDOT’s John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (http://www.its.dot.gov/standards_strategic_plan/).
- 12.
- 13.
References
Alazawi Z, Abdljabar MB, Altowaijri S, Vegni AM, Mehmood R (2012) ICDMS: an intelligent cloud based disaster management system for vehicular networks. In: International workshop on communication technologies for vehicles. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, pp 40–56
Appleyard B, Zheng Y, Watson R, Bruce L, Sohmer R, Li X, Qian J (2007) Smart cities : solutions for China’s rapid urbanization
Bansal N, Mukherjee M, Gairola A (2012) Compact development as land use planning tool for urban disaster management:129–139
Bongardt D, Breithaupt M, Creutzig F (2010) Beyond the fossil city: towards low carbon transport and green growth. … in Asia. United Nations Centre for ….
Dickson E, Tiwari A, Judy Baker HD (2010) Understanding urban risk. Analysis
Doytsher Y, Kelly P, Khouri R (2010) Rapid urbanization and megacities: the need for spatial information management.In: Potsiou C (ed) Research study by FIG …, (48). Available at: https://www.fig.net/pub/fig2010/papers/ts01b%5Cts01b_potsiou_doytsher_et_al_4709.pdf. Accessed 30 June 2014
Emerine D, Shenot C, Bailey MK, Sobel L, Susman M (2006) This is smart growth. Smart Growth Network
EPA (Fiksel J, Frederickson H) (2010) A framework for sustainability indicators at EPA A framework for sustainability indicators at EPA Authors
Falconer G, Mitchell S (2012) Smart city framework: a systematic process for enabling smart connected communities. … /web/about/ac79/docs/ps/motm/Smart-City-Framework. …, (September). Available at: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&btnG=Search&q=intitle:Smart+City+Framework+A+Systematic+Process+for+Enabling+Smart+++Connected+Communities#2
Hwang JS, Choe YH (2013) Smart cities Seoul: a case study. ITU-T technology watch report (February, 2013), Seoul
Ibm.com (2014) IBM – Smart Growth – Smarter Cities – Visions – India. [online]. Available at: http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/in/en/sustainable_cities/visions/index.html. Accessed 27 Mar 2014
IEA (2002) World energy outlook. International Energy Agency, Paris
IISD (2004) Transportation and greenhouse gas emissions: exploring opportunities for the clean development mechanism in Chile International Institute of Sustainable Development
Kötter PT (2004) Risks and opportunities of urbanisation and megacities
Litman T (2004) Evaluating research quality: guidelines for scholarship. Victoria Transport Policy Institute (www.vtpi.org); at www.vtpi.org/resqual.pdf
Litman T (2011) The first casualty of a non-existent war: evaluating claims of unjustified restrictions on automobile use, and a critique of ‘Washingtons war on cars and the suburbs’.Victoria Transport Policy Institute (www.vtpi.org); at www.vtpi.org/carwars.pdf
OECD- ITF Joint Transport Research Committee’s Working Group (2010) Reducing transport greenhouse gas emissions
Saxena S, Banister D (2008) Breaking the trend visionong and backcasting for transport in India and Delhi. Halcrow Group Ltd. At: https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/project-document/68254/39578-reg-dpta.pdf
TERI Team (Ghate A, Lingaraj G, Zia H, Chakraborty M, Kochhar P, Malhotra S, Veldore V) (2010) Climate resilient and sustainable urban development
UNDESA (2013) World economic and social survey 2013. Department for Economic and Social Affairs, New York. Available at: http://esa.un.org/wpp/documentation/pdf/WPP2012_KEYFINDINGS.pdf
UNDP (2011) United Nations Human Development Report 2011. A Better Future for All, Human Development
UNESCAP (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the pacific), UNISDR (United Nations International Strategy For Disaster Reduction) (2010) Protecting development gains- reducing disaster vulnerability & building resilience in Asia & the Pacific: The Asia Pacific Disaster Report, Bangkok
UNISDR (United Nations International Strategy For Disaster Reduction) (2002) Natural disasters and sustainable development: understanding the links between development. Natural Disasters and Sustainable Development, Johannesburg
Wagner.nyu.edu. (2014) Intelligent cities: technology, policy and planning | NYU Wagner. [online]. Available at: http://wagner.nyu.edu/courses/courseDetail.php?nbr=URPL-GP.4611. Accessed 16 June 2014
Welch A, Benfield K, Raimi M (2011) A citizen’s guide to LEED for neighborhood development : how to tell if development is smart and green:2–44
WSSD (World Summit on Sustainable Development) (2002) Convened from 26 August to 4 September 2002, in Johannesburg, South Africa, reaffirmed the international community’s commitment to ‘full implementation’ of Agenda 21, alongside achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and other international agreements. The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI), adopted at WSSD, sets out new commitments and priorities for action on sustainable development
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore
About this paper
Cite this paper
Bansal, N., Mukherjee, M., Gairola, A. (2017). Smart Cities and Disaster Resilience. In: Seta, F., Sen, J., Biswas, A., Khare, A. (eds) From Poverty, Inequality to Smart City. Springer Transactions in Civil and Environmental Engineering. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2141-1_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2141-1_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-2139-8
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-2141-1
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)