What is Resilience?

re·sil·ience

A capability to anticipate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from significant multi-hazard threats with minimum damage to social well-being, the economy, and the environment.

In the context of climate change, being resilient means reducing our exposure to future climate risks while strengthening our capacity to respond. According to the Colorado Resilience Framework, resilience is “...the ability of communities to rebound, positively adapt to, or thrive amidst changing conditions or challenges – including disasters and climate change – and maintain quality of life, healthy growth, durable systems, and conservation of resources for present and future generations.” The Colorado Resiliency Framework, adopted by the Governor June 1, 2015 (and in the process of being updated in 2020), is a statewide framework dedicated to empowering resilience across Colorado.

Other Key Terms

Adaptation - Adjustment in natural or human systems to a new or changing environment that exploits beneficial opportunities or moderates negative effects.

Adaptive Capacity - The potential of a system to adjust to climate change (including climate variability and extremes) to moderate potential damages, take advantage of opportunities, and cope with the consequences.

Frontline Communities - Those communities that experience climate change first and often feel the worst effects. They are communities that have higher exposures, are more sensitive, and are less able to adapt to climate change impacts for a variety of reasons.

Global Warming - The observed increase in average temperature near the Earth’s surface and in the lowest layer of the atmosphere. In common usage, “global warming” often refers to the warming that has occurred as a result of increased emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities. Global warming is a type of climate change; it can also lead to other changes in climate conditions, such as changes in precipitation patterns.

Mitigation - Measures to reduce the amount and speed of future climate change by reducing emissions of heat-trapping gases or removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Preparedness - Actions taken to build, apply, and sustain the capabilities necessary to prevent, protect against, and ameliorate negative effects.

Vulnerability - The degree to which physical, biological, and socio-economic systems are susceptible to and unable to cope with adverse impacts of climate change.

Definitions for Resilience and other terms from the U.S. Global Change Research Program - https://www.globalchange.gov/climate-change/glossary