Risk Systemicity and City Resilience

The resilience of cities has become a matter of concern across the world. The Rockefeller Foundation has sponsored resilience development in 100 cities across the world and the project discussed in this paper follows from EU interest in the topic. Resilience is dependent, at least in part, on effective risk assessment. However, most risk assessment follows the creation of the traditional risk register that list risks, their probability and their impact. In this paper we describe the development of a risk systemicity questionnaire (RSQ) that recognises risk scenarios as complex networks of risk consequences, and has embedded in it background programming that recognises the interaction between risk scenarios represented in the questionnaire. The research represents an attempt to operationalise theoretical perspectives on risk systemicity through work with seven European cities. The RSQ was co-produced with these cities to help European cities in their consideration of risk systemicity with respect to their local contexts.