Assessing the disaster resilience of megacities: The case of Hong Kong

Abstract

Many megacities are facing potential threats from various disasters, especially in the face of climate change. However, evaluating the resilience of megacities is not well established in both the academia and practice field. Using Hong Kong, which is a megacity ranked as the city in Asia with the highest risk for natural disasters, as a case study, we demonstrated the effort of assessing the resilience of a megacity. The Sendai Framework Local Urban Indicators Tools that was developed by the United Nation Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) was adopted as the main tool in this study, and a mixed bottom-up participatory and top-down method was utilized in the evaluation process. This is an innovative and participatory approach that is not commonly adopted in assessing the resilience of cities. The study found that Hong Kong is disaster resilient in that it mainstreams disaster risk in its development and that it dedicates sufficient financial resources. However, Hong Kong may improve on its disaster governance and encourage cooperation between the government and society to identify disaster risk and share information, particularly in the face of climate change and calls for more sustainable development.