 I'd like to welcome to the stage Caroline Wenger from the A&U College of Medicine, Biology and the Environment, and the title of Caroline's three-minute presentation is, Immovable Oaks and Unbreachable Dykes. How many of you know Esop's fable of the oak and the reed? The oak, strong and proud, can withstand the fiercest storm, and it mocks the reed who is pushed about by the lightest breeze. In one day, a massive, perhaps unprecedented storm arrives. The oak is uprooted and dies, but the reed humbly bows, and once the storm has passed, springs back up. This tale has all the elements of modern disaster resilience theory, rigidity versus flexibility, capacity to bounce back, and even a severe storm like those we may encounter more often with modern-day climate change. My research into flood policy looks at how to encourage options able to cope with climate change. For this, I'm investigating resilience theory and whether it leads to outcomes that are truly adaptive. For example, a floodwall is like an oak. It can withstand floods up to a certain size, but it may be overcome in a large flood. A classic example of floodwall failure happened in New Orleans in 2005. Because the culprit, 50 levees and floodwalls failed. Ten years later, the city hasn't died, but neither has it fully recovered. On the other hand, there will be little damage to flood-compatible development, frequent exposure to floods, nurtures learning, and adaptive strategies. As an added bonus, it also results in healthier ecosystems. My research uses case studies to find out how resilience theory is applied in different countries. I've found that it supports an array of approaches, some of them oak-like and some read-like. It seems the word resilience is itself highly adaptable and it can bend in any political direction. Resilience definitions are partly to blame for this. Some define resilience as the capacity to absorb or cope with shocks and then recover. Resilience uses the more oakish words, resist or withstand. The definition used can lead to very different outcomes, some of which could ultimately increase our vulnerability to climate change. It's hard to argue with the desirability of achieving resilience. People like to see themselves as strong enough to cope with setback, so it has enormous political power. However, instead of looking at resilience as a process or property, as most researchers do, I'd like people to focus on outcomes. We need to ask if unbendable, unbreachable solutions are truly resilient. Thanks.