As such, cities in both developing and developed countries need to increase their resilience to both acute and chronic stresses, where resilience is the ability of a system to absorb and recover from shocks and stresses andadapt in ways that improve the overall sustainability of the system; enabling it to be better prepared.

 The Palgrave Handbook of Urban Climate and Disaster Resilience provides readers with a comprehensive reference on the plethora of ways various urban centres are attempting to enhance their resilience to the impacts of climate change and disasters across a range of themes. In particular, each chapter, under its respective theme, will address how urban centres, or a series of urban centres, in countries of varying levels of development, have implemented innovative policies, management practices, and technologies that seek synergies across strategies, choices and actions, in an attempt to build cities that are resilient to climatic extremes and disasters. Each chapter will address one specific sub-theme that includes: Built environment and infrastructure, water and food, energy, transport, and human health