The Nexus of ‘Urban Resilience’ and Energy Efficiency in Cities

Dear Colleagues,

From earthquakes to flooding, rapid migration and adverse, unprecedented events, all cities face a range of shocks, stresses, and hazards, both natural and human made. Cities are becoming home to more than 54% of the world’s population today, with projections that they will gain an even more important role at the center of global socioeconomic growth by 2050, but this high concentration in urban centers comes with a depletion of resources and various hazards related to climate change, both of which urgently need to be tackled. While resilience and resource efficiency have gained prominence within the urban sustainability agenda, however, there has been little conceptual or practical consideration of the relationship between the two agendas. This means that decision makers and practitioners (including national and local governments, the private sector, and society in general) may not understand or know how to address complementarities or conflicts between them.

This Special Issue brings together research that explores links between the principles, objectives, and types of initiatives associated with resilience and resource management in the urban sphere. In fact, resilience is a compelling combination that aims to ensure positive and long-term drivers at the core of the humanitarian development nexus and focuses on the reduction in risks and on increasing cities’ capacities by addressing their vulnerabilities. The concept is scientifically intriguing and broadly recognized by scholars due to the exposure of cities to vulnerability, changes, and the need for adaptability to recover from change, and it is related to the built, ecological, social, and economic subsystems of the city to reduce vulnerabilities and bounce back against the unexpected outcomes of a phenomenon.

In this Special Issue, we invite you to question the relationship between the concepts of resilience and energy efficiency, which have gained prominence along with the term of sustainability agenda. At the same time, we aim to identify opportunities to mutualize the tensions of their objectives, focusing on the analysis of the conceptual framework of resilience and energy efficiency and the definition of their different dimensions.

Dr. Sesil Koutra
Prof. Dr. Vincent Becue
Dr. Jeremy Cenci
Guest Editors

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• urban resilience
• energy sustainability
• energy efficiency
• energy community
• vulnerability