Understanding multiple resilience dividends and system boundaries in disaster- and climate-risk management: a systems approach for enhanced decision-making

Hochrainer-Stigler, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9929-8171, Mechler, R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2239-1578, Higuera-Roa, O. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7008-2257, Bachmann, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-8974-1241, Šakić Trogrlić, R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6627-873X, Handmer, J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6674-7946, & Dieckmann, U. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7089-0393 (2025). Understanding multiple resilience dividends and system boundaries in disaster- and climate-risk management: a systems approach for enhanced decision-making. Environmental Research Letters 20 (4) e044026. 10.1088/1748-9326/adac7a.

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Abstract

Challenges in managing multi-hazards and multi-risks within complex risk landscapes—where numerous stakeholders with different priority needs and risk perceptions interact—remain unresolved. Here we suggest ways to tackle these pressing challenges in an integrated and comprehensive manner by applying key concepts from systemic risk research to triple- and multiple-dividend approaches. The central idea is that additional dividends (i.e., economic, social, and environmental co-benefits of disaster-risk reduction that go beyond loss-reduction benefits) can be related to different system boundaries (e.g., individual systems and system of systems) through their interdependencies. This approach allows for an integrated evaluation of interventions that may be more beneficial across various scales and for corresponding threats, thus increasing synergies (or co-benefits) and decreasing asynergies (or trade-offs) of disaster-risk reduction in a systemic way. Importantly, triple and multiple dividends, along with their related tools and approaches, can be seen as part of a ‘dividend continuum’, reflecting the varying levels of interdependencies across spatial and temporal scales within complex risk landscapes. As a consequence, dividends within and across systems can be managed simultaneously, based on determining priority needs, risk perceptions, and trade-offs involved in building resilience against current and future risks.

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