Developing an Urban Resilience Index for Ajman City
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Date
2023-06
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The British University in Dubai (BUiD)
Abstract
Land-use change and worldwide environmental degradation are both accelerated by urbanisation. With global urbanisation accelerating, new regulations are needed to protect urban ecosystems, species, and the services they offer, ensuring more viable, adaptable, and liveable cities. The increase in the research of sustainable development has enhanced the awareness and attention of various global sectors such as developers and policymakers regarding advanced sustainable cities, along with the associated impact of sustainability in terms of the urban transformation.
Ajman, one of the seven emirates that make up the UAE, has begun to establish plans, policies, and initiatives for this aim in collaboration with the other governmental agencies. Ajman has faced more obstacles as a result of the Emirate’s growing population, improved social conditions, way of life, and industrial revolution. These difficulties line up with the national and international aims and strategies that focus on pressing environmental, social, and economic problems. As a result, Ajman Municipality has made it a priority to integrate sustainability into all facets of daily life, and considers it to be essential to both its vision and goals.
This research is intended to develop an urban resilience index (URI) for Ajman city to support future planning. The primary objective was to develop a tool for measuring and quantifying the resilience of an area, in order to assist policymakers and urban planners in determining whether a development project will be instrumental in enhancing city-level resilience. The proposed URI is based on data collected from a range of indicators spanning a number of key URI component indices. The dimensions over which the indices are distributed were identified through a critical literature review, while keeping Ajman’s local context in mind. The methodology for the current research was the primary qualitative approach, which was collected by conducting interviews.
Ajman’s URI, according to the stakeholder feedback, should include institutional, infrastructural, social, and economic factors. The stakeholders also pointed out that the primary urban indicators that should be included in Ajman’s URI are the ecological environment’s quality, environmental policies, land use, public service amenities, disaster response and reduction framework, and critical city infrastructure. One of the issues raised was that the population of urban areas has grown significantly in recent years, and is expected to grow even further. Therefore, planners cannot find a balance between measures that can be better implemented to make urban systems, cities, and their people more resilient to problems.
A 17-item universal resilience indicator composite was developed and found to be effective in assisting policymakers with the planning and assessment of a resilient future Ajman. The proposed URI can provide comprehensive information on urban resilience to climate change for municipal planners in cities. It allows for comprehensive city comparisons, which aids in the qualitative evaluation of areas of strength and weakness. It also allows one to look into the relationships between the total URI and other aspects of urban climate change resistance. Thus, the URI can be used to assess individual components of urban resilience and their associated indicators, as well as broad indicators of urban climate change resilience.
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Keywords
urban resilience, United Arab Emirates (UAE), urbanisation, industrial revolution,