Why Definitions of Resilience Matter: The Example of Funding New Zealand’s Transport Sector

Abstract

Resilience embodies concepts of impact absorption and recovery, adaptation, and transformation. Clarity is needed when using the term as to whether these attributes are being pursued contemporaneously, sequentially, or at all. Land transport funding in New Zealand is examined from a climate change perspective and demonstrates policies and processes applying resilience in the sense of maintaining or improving current levels of service despite perturbations, with elements of medium term adaptation. While this interpretation helps manage immediate uncertainty, it may lock development into a low-resilience trajectory. However, this may change as the full meaning of resilience becomes apparent.