Smart Urban Resilience: Enabling Citizen Action in Disaster Risk Reduction and Emergency Response

墨西哥的自然灾害是人类痛苦和经济损失的一个重要来源。由于地震、飓风和洪水等造成的年均损失估计为29亿美元，确定新的、综合的和共享的减少灾害风险和应急响应形式是国家的优先事项。这种需要对于中型城市尤为突出，因为这些城市居住着世界上大多数城市人口，但人们对它们的了解却很少。以前的研究已经确定，墨西哥城市由于其地貌和水文气象条件的广泛多样性以及目前不断变化的气候，可能会经历更频繁和极端的天气事件。在8，770万生活在各种自然灾害地区的墨西哥人中，70%生活在城市，10%生活在城市周边地区。为了直接应对这些挑战，该项目侧重于智能/数字城市化实践、减少灾害风险（DRR）和应急响应之间的交叉点，以确定智能城市（及相关技术）如何在规划和应对灾害和紧急情况时启用（或禁用）公民行动。它借鉴了《新城市议程》（联合国人居署2017年）和《城市可持续发展目标》（联合国2015年）确立的目标，包括需要采用和实施减少灾害风险的做法，并在城市建设中促进参与性方法，从而研究数字技术对墨西哥城市复原力的可能性。复原力研究和文献表明，建设复原力不仅需要切实有效的硬基础设施和技术进步，还需要有能力和运作良好的“软基础设施”，包括社交网络和机构能力及协调（Susskind，2010年）。我们的项目认识到，寻求利用，并找到方法来加强民间社会在墨西哥的DRR和应急响应中已经发挥的重要作用，通过研究智慧城市方法实现DRR和应急响应的途径。虽然智慧城市叙事和数字城市技术无疑对城市的当代配置产生了深远的影响，但它们在改变城市减灾和紧急情况治理方面的潜力在很大程度上仍未得到开发。该项目的主要目的是了解智慧城市和城市数字技术如何通过改变公民准备和应对自然灾害和紧急情况的方式，在建设城市复原力方面发挥作用，从而实证检验公民参与是否以及如何对实现智慧城市技术在减灾中的潜力至关重要。该项目着眼于一系列智慧城市干预措施（如开放数据平台、公民黑客、智慧城市规划等）的现有实践和未来潜力，这些干预措施将改变不同社会行为体在减灾和应急响应中的作用。在地理上，该项目侧重于中等城市，因为这些地方的快速和无计划增长、城市扩张和贫困可能会加剧未来的风险。在全球范围内，大多数城市居民生活在中小城市，但研究集中在大城市和特大城市。中等城市在治理、资源和能力方面有其自身的挑战，这些挑战直接影响到它们参与减灾和应急反应的方式。该项目选择克雷塔罗、普埃布拉和阿卡普尔科三个城市作为案例研究的主要地点，因为这三个城市的灾害和生态系统各不相同。

Natural hazards in Mexico are a significant source of human suffering and economic loss. With earthquakes, hurricanes and floods, amongst others, generating estimated annual average losses of $2.9b USD, identifying novel, integrated and shared forms of disaster risk reduction (DRR) and emergency response is a national priority. Such need is particularly salient for medium-sized cities, which are home to the majority of the world's urban population yet poorly understood. Previous studies have identified that Mexican cities, given their broad diversity of geomorphological and hydro-meteorological conditions as well as the current changing climate, are likely to experience more frequent and extreme weather events. Out of the 87.7 million Mexicans living in areas exposed to various natural hazards, 70% live in urban and 10% in peri-urban areas. Responding directly to these challenges, this project focuses on the intersection between smart/digital urbanism practices, disaster risk reduction (DRR) and emergency response to determine how the smart city (and associated technologies) can enable (or disable) citizen action in planning for and responding to disasters and emergencies. It draws on the objectives established by the New Urban Agenda (UN Habitat 2017) and the 'Urban Sustainable Development Goal' (United Nations 2015), including the need to adopt and implement DRR practices and foster participatory approaches in the making of cities, thus examining the possibility of digital technologies contributing to urban resilience in Mexico. Resilience studies and literature have shown that building resilience requires not only hard effective and efficient infrastructure and technological advances, but also capable and functioning 'soft infrastructure' including social networks and institutional capacity and coordination (Susskind 2010). Our project recognizes, seeks to capitalize on, and find ways to strengthen the already significant role that civil society has historically played in DRR and emergency response in Mexico, through examining pathways for smart city approaches towards DRR and emergency response. While smart city narratives and digital urban technologies are undoubtedly having a profound impact on the contemporary configuration of the city, their potential for transforming the governance of DRR and emergencies in cities remains largely unexplored. This project's main aim is to understand how smart city and urban digital technologies play a role in building urban resilience through changing the ways in which citizens prepare and respond to natural disasters and emergencies, thereby empirically testing whether and how citizen engagement is important for realising the potential of smart urban technologies in DRR. The project looks at existing practice of and future potential for a range of smart city interventions (such as open data platforms, civic hacking, smart urban planning and others) altering the role of different social actors in DRR and emergency response. Geographically, the project focuses on medium-sized cities, given the potential of exacerbated future risks in these locations resulting from rapid and unplanned growth, urban sprawl and poverty. Globally, most urban residents live in small- or medium-sized cities, yet research concentrates on large- and mega-cities. Medium-sized cities bring their own challenges in governance, resource and capacity, and these challenges directly affect their ways of engaging with DRR and emergency response. The project has selected the cities of Queretaro, Puebla and Acapulco as the main locations for its case study, given the diversity of hazards and ecosystems represented within these 3 cities.