The Role of Resilience in Achieving Sustainable Development

Natural disasters are part of the human life process and the damages caused by them have always affected human life. This has increased with the progress and change in lifestyle in generations, due to factors such as the increasing human interference in the natural system and the increasing expansion of cities. Today, the world's population in urban areas is increasing at an unprecedented rate (Yar Ahmadi, ۲۰۱۸). According to the United Nations forecast, it is likely that by ۲۰۵۰, about ۸۰ percent of the world's population will live in cities; This means that urban areas will become the main location of many potential disasters (Purakarmi, ۲۰۱۷). This uncontrolled speed and rapid population growth in cities have made urbanization one of the main risk factors. Also, given that cities are centers of diverse economic, social, and sometimes political activities, they are very vulnerable to natural hazards. Also, world data shows the fact that over the past two decades, natural disasters have occurred with greater frequency and diversity than in the past and have caused many destructive and sometimes irreparable effects. Global statistics on damage caused by natural disasters show that in ۲۰۰۰, ۷۰۰ natural disasters were identified, which resulted in ۲۵,۰۰۰ deaths, $۳۶ billion in economic damage, and $۱۱.۵ billion in insurance losses. Therefore, effective measures need to be taken to prevent and reduce the destructive effects of these events. For this, efficient natural disaster management strategies are needed to Communities can move towards reducing vulnerability at local (even regional and national) levels in relation to reducing natural hazards. Disasters that have occurred in recent years indicate that communities and individuals have become increasingly vulnerable and risks have also increased. In conditions where uncertainties are growing, resilience is introduced as the concept of facing disturbances, surprises and changes (Yar Ahmadi, ۲۰۱۸). In the meantime, resilience is defined as ۱- the amount of damage and loss that a system is willing to absorb without going out of balance, ۲- the ability of a system to self-organize in different conditions, and ۳- the ability of the system to create and increase learning capacity and strengthen adaptation to conditions (Purakarmi, ۲۰۱۷). While the issue of resilience has been discussed and studied in human societies for a long time. In a way, since the beginning of its era, humanity has taken measures to make its life resilient to adversity. For example, securing settlements against various accidents in the evolution of human life. Today, societies are also trying to maintain their readiness to face accidents and also to deal with them and return to a stable state more quickly following the occurrence of emergency conditions. Therefore, in recent years, much attention has been paid to the issue of resilience (Momtaz Dargahi, ۲۰۱۹). At the global level, significant changes in the attitude towards risks are seen; so that the dominant view of focusing on The focus has shifted from simply reducing vulnerability to increasing resilience to disasters. Based on this approach, disaster risk reduction programs should seek to create and strengthen the characteristics of resilient communities and also pay attention to the concept of resilience in the disaster management chain. Since the adoption of the legal framework of the Hugo Plan in the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), the goal and process of planning for disaster risk reduction, apart from reducing vulnerability, has been clearly focused on increasing and improving resilience in communities (Purakermi, ۲۰۱۷). Therefore, in recent years, institutions and agencies active in the field of disaster reduction have focused more of their activities on achieving a disaster-resilient society.