Assessing Urban Resilience to Pandemics with a Hybrid Framework of Planning, Absorption, Recovery, and Adaptation Abilities: A Case Study of Ahvaz, Iran

This research advances urban resilience assessment beyond conventional social, economic, environmental, and institutional dimensions by introducing a hybrid framework integrating systemic resilience characteristics across planning, absorption, recovery, and adaptation abilities. Our study focused on Ahvaz, Iran, during the COVID-19 pandemic, utilizing a questionnaire survey involving 705 residents between May and November 2022. The results show that urban resilience in Ahvaz is low in all four capacities, especially in absorption, which indicates the city's limited ability to isolate disruptive events and prevent cascading impacts. We found that there is no significant difference in urban resilience across different districts of the city. However, a positive relationship exists between socio-economic status and urban resilience, underscoring its role in bolstering a city's ability to deal with adverse events. Ensuring fair distribution and accessibility of assets and resources within the city is crucial to minimize adverse effects on low-income groups. The findings highlight the necessity of reinforcing absorption capacities and addressing socio-economic inequalities to enhance urban resilience. The insights reported in this study can inform policies and planning efforts toward creating more resilient cities.