(1) “Resiliency is defined as the capability of a system to maintaining its functions and structure in the face of internal and external change and to degrade gracefully when it must”. (Allenby and Fink 2005, 1034). (2) “Resilience refers to the capability to prevent or protect against significant multihazard threats and incidents and to expeditiously recover and reconstitute critical services with minimum damage to public safety and health, the economy, and national security”. (American Society of Civil Engineers, Critical Infrastructure Definitions, 2006). (3) “…the ability of social units (e.g., organizations, communities) to mitigate hazards, contain the effects of disasters when they occur, and carry out recovery activities in ways that minimize social disruption and mitigate the effects of future disasters”. (Bruneau, et al, A Framework to Quantitatively Assess and Enhance… Seismic Resilience…, 2003). (4) The capacity to recover successfully from loss and damage. The central features of resilience appear to be access to resources (particularly finance), access to information and services, the capacity to manage one’s own affairs and the capacity to deal with the stress and emotions generated by the disaster. (Buckle 1995, 13). (5) “The capacity of a system, community or society potentially exposed to hazards to adapt, by resisting or changing in order to reach and maintain an acceptable level of functioning and structure”. (Capital Health Region, Edmonton Canada, ICS Training SM, 2007, 57). (6) “Coutu’s review of the resilience literature113 suggests that there are three key elements to resilience: (1) “a staunch acceptance of reality,” “a deep belief, often buttressed by strongly held values, that life is meaningful,” and “an uncanny ability to improvise”“. (Light, Predicting Organizational Crisis Readiness: Perspectives and Practices toward a Pathway to Preparedness, 2008, p. 16). (7) “…a dictionary definition [Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary] for ‘resilience’ is: ‘an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change’. Strategies based on resilience accept that efforts to prevent attacks (reduce threats) and to defend against those attacks (reduce vulnerabilities), albeit necessary, will inevitably prove insufficient. Strategies based on resilience address all three components of the risk equation in an integrated fashion”. (Critical Infrastructure Task Force 2006, 4-5). (8) “Definition: the ability to recover from, or adjust to, adversity or change. “Extended definition: the ability of systems, infrastructures, government, business, and citizenry to absorb and/or quickly recover from an adverse event or series of events caused by attack or natural disaster which may cause harm, destruction, or loss of national significance and to restore minimum essential operations and reduce the consequences of its degradation or failure regardless of its cause. “Annotation: Resilience is determined by the degree to which the social system is capable of organizing itself to increase its capacity for learning from past disasters for better future protection and to improve risk reduction measures. Includes: (1) immediate efforts to coordinate, execute, and plan to restore operations and services for various reasons, and (2) immediate evaluation of an incident to identify lessons learned, post incident reporting and development of initiatives to mitigate the effects of future incidents. (DHS, Lexicon, October 19, 2007, p. 23). (9) Question: “The House Homeland Security Committee has devoted its hearings to the subject of resilience and has had a number of hearings so far. Would you have a comment - I don't think you've testified or were intending to testify on this - the department has offered some comments on resilience being either one of two things: part and parcel the strategy as it already is or actually a distraction from what's more important, and that is focusing on prevention and emergency response. (10) “…Resilience is key [to a determination of vulnerability] since it refers to our coping capacity to absorb events, adapt, and respond to and recover from its effects”. (DHS, TCL, 2007, p. 13). (11) “The ability of an organization to absorb the impact of a business interruption, and continue to provide a minimum acceptable level of service”. (DigitalCare, State of Oregon Business Cont. Workshop, 2006, p. 62). (12) “In this Code, the word ‘Resilience’ is to be interpreted in the broadest sense as the ability of an organization, resource or structure to be resistant to a range of internal and external threats, to withstand the effects of a partial loss of capability and to recover and resume its provision of service with the minimum reasonable loss of performance”. (Electronic Communications Resilience & Response Group. EC-RRG Resilience Guidelines for Providres of Critical National Telecommunications Infrastructure. June 3, 2008, p. 3). (13) “Defined as the ability of a system to withstand to and recover from adversity, resilience is increasingly applied to larger social and technical systems. Stress and adversity are experienced not only by individuals and groups, but also by organizations and institutions. In the context of increasing natural and man-made threats and vulnerabilities of modern societies, the concept seems particularly useful to inform policies that mitigate the consequences of such events”. (George Mason University School of Law, CIPP, Critical Thinking: Moving from Infrastructure Protection to Infrastructure Resilience, May 2006). (14) “The ability at every level to detect, prevent, prepare for and if necessary handle and recover from disruptive challenges”. (Great Britain 2004, 1). (15) “Ability of an organization to resist being affected by an event”. (ISO 22399, Societal Security…, 2007, 5). (16) “Simply stated, resilience is the ability to rapidly respond to and recover from a catastrophic event…Enhancing resilience recognizes that not every disaster can be averted. It is imperative that our national security policy place as much attention to resilience as it does to prevention so that we employ the proper resources towards preparedness and contingency planning”. (Kelly, Robert W., Reform Institute Applauds Congressional Focus…, May 6, 2008). (17) “Resilience: a community or region’s capability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from significant multi-hazard threats with minimum damage to public safety and health, the economy, and national security. (1) Prevents and mitigates cascading failures, often characteristic of critical infrastructure impacts (2) Minimizes disruption to life and economies”. (ORNL, SERRI) Community and Regional Resilience Initiative: Resilient Communities, Resilient Regions (Slide Pres.), 13Aug07, slide 3). (18) “Resilience as a concept was initially used in ecology to describe the ability of ecosystems to resist and recover from external negative impacts (Blaikie and Brookfield, 1985). The term is increasingly used in the disaster management sphere and reflects a trend towards a holistic and proactive approach that has the community, and its ability to resist and recover as its focus. The term resilience brings together the components of the disaster cycle - response, recovery, mitigation and preparedness, utilizing a range of structural and non-structural approaches”. (O’Brien and Read 2005, 354). (19) “In examining the attributes and determinants of resilience, MCEER investigators [Bruneau et al, above] developed the R4 framework of resilience: (1) Robustness - the ability of systems, system elements, and other units of analysis to withstand disaster forces without significant degradation or loss of performance; (2) Redundancy - the extent to which systems, system elements, or other units are substitutable, that is, capable of satisfying functional requirements, if significant degradation or loss of functionality occurs; (3) Resourcefulness - the ability to diagnose and prioritize problems and to initiate solutions by identifying and mobilizing material, monetary, informational, technological, and human resources; and (4) Rapidity - the capacity to restore functionality in a timely way, containing losses and avoiding disruptions”. (Tierney and Bruneau, 2007, p. 15). (20) “Many attempts have been made to define ‘resilience’. The variety of academic definitions and concepts can be confusing. For operational purposes it is more useful to work with broad definitions and commonly understood characteristics. Using this approach, system or community resilience can be understood as: (1) capacity to absorb stress or destructive forces through resistance or adaptation (2) capacity to manage, or maintain certain basic functions and structures, during disastrous events (3) capacity to recover or ‘bounce back’ after an event. ‘Resilience’ is generally seen as a broader concept than ‘capacity’ because it goes beyond the specific behaviour, strategies and measures for risk reduction and management that are normally understood as capacities. However, it is difficult to separate the concepts clearly. In everyday usage, ‘capacity’ and ‘coping capacity’ often mean the same as ‘resilience’. A focus on resilience means putting greater emphasis on what communities can do for themselves and how to strengthen their capacities, rather than concentrating on their vulnerability to disaster or their needs in an emergency. The terms ‘resilience’ and ‘vulnerability’ are opposite sides of the same coin, but both are relative terms. One has to ask what individuals, communities and systems are vulnerable or resilient to, and to what extent”. (Twigg, Characteristics of a Disaster-resilient Community, August 2007, p. 6). (21) “UK doctrine which centres on the ability to handle disruptive challenges that can lead to crisis, and withstand the consequences of any terrorist incident or disaster, e.g. by sustaining services in spite of damage. Resilience is underpinned by extensive preparation, including scenario exercises”. (UK Cabinet Office, Media Emergency Forum: Joint Glossary of Official and Media Terms and Acronyms, August 2004, p. 19). (22) “The ability of the community, services or infrastructure to withstand the consequences of an incident. (Cabinet Office: ‘Emergency Preparedness/Emergency Response and Recovery’)”. (UK, Chiefs of Staff. Joint Doctrine Publication 02 (2nd Ed.): Operations in the UK: The Defence Contribution to Resilience. September 2007, lexicon-13)