Abstract

The United States faces an increasingly complex set of challenges. Disruptions from a range of acute incidents (also called shocks), such as natural disasters, pandemics, cyber and physical attacks, infrastructure failures, and sudden loss of key industries, are becoming more frequent and intense. 

Additionally, long-term strains on our communities, such as deteriorating infrastructure, environmental degradation, extreme weather amplified by climate change, social injustice, lack of affordable housing, food insecurity, and persistent poverty, negatively impact quality of life and well-being, worsen the impacts of shocks, and undermine our ability to thrive. Together, shocks and stressors have significant impacts on our security, economy, environment, and social and physical well-being. 

However, by understanding these challenges and applying a unified, whole community approach to addressing them, we can strengthen our collective security and resilience so that we can overcome these ever-evolving challenges and also thrive as a nation.

National resilience is a complex topic and building it requires whole community effort. The National Resilience Guidance (NRG) is intentionally high-level and provides a broad overview, inclusive of all facets of resilience. It will help everyone understand and fulfill their critical roles related to increasing national resilience. With the goal of increasing community and national resilience, the NRG:

• Promotes a common understanding of resilience.
• Emphasizes the critical relationship between chronic community stressors and acute shocks.
• Addresses the resilience roles of individuals, organizations, and all levels of government.
• Provides an actionable approach to resilience planning and implementation.
• Incorporates a community resilience maturity model that walks through concrete steps to build resilience.

The National Resilience Guidance emphasizes that strengthening resilience requires a collective approach. A resilient nation is created and sustained through thriving communities with secure and adaptable social, economic, environmental, housing, infrastructure, and institutional systems. Addressing resilience from only one perspective or through only one resilience lens will not be successful.

Additional resources related to strengthening resilience, including case studies, toolkits, and guidance documents, are available on the FEMA website. These resources dive deeper into some of the concepts from this guide and provide implementation strategies and concrete examples of how to build resilience.

Affiliated Organizations

U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

FEMA’s mission is to help people before, during and after disasters. The challenges posed by more intense storms, frequent heavy rain, heat waves, drought, extreme flooding, and higher sea levels could lead to increased risks from disasters faced by communities and the emergency management professionals serving them.

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