Building a Climate-Resilient City: Disaster preparedness and emergency management

This policy brief provides recommendations for Alberta's cities to improve disaster preparedness and emergency management in the face of climate change. It emphasizes integrating extreme weather projections into planning, investing in green infrastructure and building codes, and empowering citizens through outreach. The brief is part of a series developed for Edmonton and Calgary based on the principles of robustness, redundancy, and resourcefulness.

• To enhance the resilience of disaster and emergency management in Alberta's cities, planning must integrate projections for more frequent and intense extreme weather events and include contingencies for spare capacity and flexibility to manage multiple climate hazards occurring simultaneously or in rapid succession.
• Long-term social benefits and cost savings can be achieved through strategic investments in disaster prevention, specifically through updated building codes and climate-resilient green infrastructure.
• Citizen preparedness and response capabilities for climate-related disasters can be ensured through continuous engagement and outreach processes.
• The 'Building a Climate-Resilient City' series, prepared for the cities of Calgary and Edmonton, recommends municipal adaptation planning based on three resilience principles: resourcefulness (citizen empowerment), redundancy (extra capacity as fail-safe networks), and robustness (strong design).

APA

Smith,, J. T. T. (2017). Building a Climate-Resilient City: Disaster preparedness and emergency management. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/publications/brief/building-climate-resilient-city-disaster-preparedness-and-emergency-management

Chicago

Smith,, Jennifer Temmer,Anika Terton,Ryan. Building a Climate-Resilient City: Disaster preparedness and emergency management. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2017. https://www.iisd.org/publications/brief/building-climate-resilient-city-disaster-preparedness-and-emergency-management.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Smith, |first1=Jennifer Temmer,Anika Terton,Ryan |title=Building a Climate-Resilient City: Disaster preparedness and emergency management |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=24 April 2017 |url=https://www.iisd.org/publications/brief/building-climate-resilient-city-disaster-preparedness-and-emergency-management |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{smith2017building, author = {Smith,, Jennifer Temmer,Anika Terton,Ryan}, title = {{Building a Climate-Resilient City: Disaster preparedness and emergency management}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2017}, month = apr, url = {https://www.iisd.org/publications/brief/building-climate-resilient-city-disaster-preparedness-and-emergency-management}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }