Page - 415 - in Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change

415 assume less uncertainty and more calculable risks. Under such governance, stability (against shocks) or endurance (against stresses) of a system are believed to be main- tained or restored by actions of control and order. Recognizing the inherent uncer- tainty of complexity also acknowledges limits to a control-style of governance. Managing the resilience of an urban system for health depends on how system changes are perceived and on whether controlled or adaptive, flexible actions are performed (Fig.  18.1). The co-production of knowledge for urban health resilience management and integrated systems of flexible governance for urban health are responses to urban complexity and an attempt to harness it for sustainability. The World Health Organization’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network1 is an example of governance strategies for resilience. It is set up to respond to unpre- dictable external shocks (outbreaks) with a flexible response network that can be mobilised when needed. Another example of resilience management for health is the Epidemic Intelligence and outbreak responses provided by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) to the EU Member States. ECDC con- tinuously monitors and assesses epidemic outbreaks in the EU region. In case of emergencies and response needs, ECDC provides both assessment missions and different levels of epidemic response actions. An example of integrated, flexible systems governance for urban health in the context of climate change are the urban Knowledge-Action Systems (KAS) analysed by Muñoz-Erickson et  al. (2017). KAS are social networks of actors involved in the production, sharing and use of knowledge for action and all other types of infrastructure, facilitating the flow of resources, including data and knowledge, and thereby enabling feedback, response and learning for action. Such KAS, once institutionalised as an organisational entity, could be referred to as the collective mind of a city, or the ‘urban brain’. An example is the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Compact,2 which came together to upgrade their resilience knowledge systems for climate adaptation. 18.1.3 Urban Complexity and  Resilience When people think of urban resilience, it is generally in the context of response to sudden impacts, such as a hazard or disaster recovery (see Alberti et  al. 2003; Alberti and Marzluff 2004; Vale and Campanella 2005; Cutter et  al. 2008; Wallace and Wallace 2008). However, the resilience concept goes far beyond recovery from sin- gle disturbances, as demonstrated by the above example of knowledge-action systems. Resilience is a multi-disciplinary concept that explores persistence, recov- ery, and adaptive and transformative capacities of interlinked social and ecological systems and subsystems (Holling 2001; Folke et  al. 2002; Walker et  al. 2004; Biggs et  al. 2012). 1 https://extranet.who.int/goarn/ 2 http://www.southeastfloridaclimatecompact.org/about-us/what-is-the-compact/ 18 Resilience Management for  Healthy Cities in  a  Changing Climate