Urban resilience assessment: A best-worst method for component prioritization

Armin, H.; Ahmadi Marzaleh, M.; Shojaei, P.; Jahangiri, M.; Hosseinekhah, H. and Peyravi, M. (2026) Urban resilience assessment: A best-worst method for component prioritization. International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, 17(4), pp. 469-491. ISSN 1759-5908

Abstract

Purpose – The concept of resilience has attracted increasing attention and concern among the public regarding threats such as climate change, disease outbreaks, natural hazards, terrorism and other risks. This study aims to evaluate and prioritize urban resilience (UR) components using a multi-indicator decision-making method as a new approach. Design/methodology/approach – In this study, the best–worst method (BWM), one of the newest weighting methods based on pairwise comparisons, was used to weight resilience assessment components. The BWM method is a powerful tool for multi-criteria decision-making and determination of criterion weight coefficients through fewer pairwise comparisons and higher reliability. Findings – Based on the BWM results, institutional resilience factors had the highest level of importance, with a final weight of 0.4085 compared to other indicators. This indicator includes features related to risk reduction planning and experience with previous accidents. The second, third and last levels were related to the economic resilience index (0.2298), social resilience factors (0.2144) and physical resilience factors (0.1473), respectively. Originality/value – The results of this study confirm that identifying and prioritizing the dimensions and indicators for UR assessment plays an important role in increasing resilience and informing policy development. Overall, this study shows that the use of comprehensive and prioritized indicators can lead to greater resilience of cities and the development of more effective strategies.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: best–worst method; disaster management; disaster resilience; multi-criteria decision-making; resilience indicator; urban resilience
Index terms: terrorism, disaster management, prioritizing, dimension, methodology, resilience indicator, strategy, decision-making, multi-criteria decision-making, urban resilience, risk reduction, outbreak, natural hazard, disaster resilience, climate change
Subjects: health risk and incident analysis, risk assessment, sustainability and resilience, decision analysis, environmental hazards, terrorism studies, health monitoring assessment and metrics, financial risk, climate science, management, research methods
Topics: Health and Safety, Business Strategy, Cost Management, Urban Studies, Sustainability, Research Practice, Risk Management
Descriptive scope: 3 PCT

N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here