International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 108 (2024) 104573 Available online 21 May 2024 2212-4209/© 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies. Assessing urban resilience to pandemics with a hybrid framework of planning, absorption, recovery, and adaptation abilities: A case study of Ahvaz, Iran Hadi Alizadeh a, b , Ayyoob Sharifi c, d, * , Safiyeh Damanbagh a a Department of Geography and Urban Planning, Faculty of Humanities, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran b Office of Housing Planning and Economics, Deputy of Housing and Construction, Iran Ministry of Road and Urban Planning, Tehran, Iran c The IDEC Institute, Hiroshima University, Japan d School of Architecture and Design, Lebanese American University, Beirut, Lebanon A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Urban resilience Absorption Recovery Adaptation COVID-19 Urban planning ABSTRACT This research advances urban resilience assessment beyond conventional social, economic, environmental, and institutional dimensions by introducing a hybrid framework integrating systemic resilience characteristics across planning, absorption, recovery, and adaptation abilities. Our study focused on Ahvaz, Iran, during the COVID-19 pandemic, utilizing a questionnaire survey involving 705 residents between May and November 2022. The results show that urban resilience in Ahvaz is low in all four capacities, especially in absorption, which indicates the city’s limited ability to isolate disruptive events and prevent cascading impacts. We found that there is no significant difference in urban resilience across different districts of the city. However, a positive relationship exists between socio-economic status and urban resilience, underscoring its role in bolstering a city’s ability to deal with adverse events. Ensuring fair distribution and accessibility of assets and resources within the city is crucial to minimize adverse effects on low- income groups. The findings highlight the necessity of reinforcing absorption capacities and addressing socio-economic inequalities to enhance urban resilience. The insights from this study can help shape policies and planning efforts aimed at building more resilient cities capable of withstanding pandemics and other stressors, including climate change. 1. Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic, which emerged in December 2019, has been a highly disruptive crisis impacting various facets of human life. It has caused significant disruptions in global and local development processes at multiple levels [1]. Urban areas have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, experiencing significant impacts worldwide [2–4]. Given that cities are hubs of innovation and development, with over half of the global population residing there, their vulnerability to disasters and crises like the current pandemic has become a major concern [5]. Therefore, adapting effectively to these effects and building resilience has garnered widespread attention globally [6]. In light of such conditions, resilience has been suggested as an adaptive reaction to the detrimental consequences brought about by * Corresponding author. Hiroshima University, The IDEC Institute and Network for Education and Research on Peace and Sustainability (NERPS), 1-5-1 Kaga- miyama, Higashi-Hiroshima City Hiroshima, 739-8529, Japan. E-mail addresses: std.hadi@gmail.com (H. Alizadeh), sharifi@hiroshima-u.ac.jp, sharifigeomatic@gmail.com (A. Sharifi), Safiyeh_damanbagh@yahoo.com (S. Damanbagh). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijdrr https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2024.104573 Received 24 August 2023; Received in revised form 17 May 2024; Accepted 20 May 2024