Institutionally configured risk: Assessing urban resilience and disaster risk reduction to heat wave risk in London

Abstract

This paper argues for an increased emphasis on the institutions of risk governance and management in understanding urban resilience. This moves analysis of vulnerability away from a focus on individuals to also consider risk management regimes as co-productive of vulnerability and resilience in the City. This is illustrated through the application of an Adaptive Capacity Index to unpack the role played by formal governance institutions in mediating resilience to extreme heat events in the empirical case of London. Analysis shows that the configuration of risk at the institutional level directs heat wave risk management through the health services, and operationalises it during the emergency phase of hazard onset. This misses an important opportunity for integrating individual and regime level risk management initiatives, which we proposed can be worked out through greater collaboration with social services and interaction with those caring for the vulnerable, has yet to be fully integrated into planning and practice in London and elsewhere.