Building Resilience to Natural Hazards at a Local Level in Germany—Research Note on Dealing with Tensions at the Interface of Science and Practice

Building resilience is a core element of urban resilience that refers to both the (1) intended physical change of the building stock and the related blue, green, and grey infrastructure, as well as (2) the social process of increasing resilience through the goal-driven cooperation of scientists and practitioners. Building resilience at the interface of science and practice is characterized by tensions and a range of approaches to dealing with tensions. To specify this proposition, this research note adopts a strategic spatial planning perspective and introduces the typology of “motors of change” from organizational and management research. We focus on a goal-driven motor of change (“teleology”) and highlight three approaches to dealing with tensions: developing a strategic focus of knowledge integration, setting priorities to enhance resilience as a pro-active ability of disaster risk reduction (DRR), and compromising in the management of trade-offs, such as those between the scales of resilience. For the purpose of illustration, this research note refers to examples of building resilience at a local level in Germany, dealing with heat stress in urban areas, managing the risk of extreme flood events, and analyzing the resilience of innovative infrastructure solutions.