Major principles and criteria for development of an urban resilience assessment index

The notion of resilience is rapidly gaining ground in the urban sustainability literature. Development of an assessment framework for evaluating the extent of resiliency of urban areas can be an effective way of incorporating resiliency-related issues into urban planning process. It is important to identify resilience-related principles and criteria that should be embedded into the assessment framework. This study aims to introduce a set of criteria that can be used to develop an urban resilience assessment Index. Criteria for assessment of the resilience of urban areas are divided into several main themes that cover various dimensions of sustainability. These themes are further broken down into major criteria to account for a variety of resilience-related aspects. The resilient assessment index has the capacity to provide decision makers with a clear and comprehensive picture of the resilience of the development proposal and supports them in making better informed decisions.