There are practical links between disaster management, climate change adaptation and sustainable development leading to improvement in disaster managementand re-enforcing resilience as a new development paradigm. There has been a noticeable change in disaster management approaches, moving from focus on vulnerability to resilience; the latter viewed as a more proactive and positive expression of community engagement with disaster management. As disasterproblems are increasing, at the same time they erode resilience. Over the last ten years substantial progress has been made in establishing the role of resilience in sustainable development. Multiple case studies around the world reveal links between attributes of resilience and the capacity of complex systems to absorb disturbance while still being able to maintain a certain level of functioning. Building on other experience, there is a need to focus more on action-based resilience planning.Disasters do not impact everyone in the same way. It is clear that the problems associated with sustainable human wellbeing call for a paradigm shift. Use of resilience as an appropriate metricfor investigation arises from the integral consideration of overlap between: (a) physical environment (built and natural); (b) social dynamics; (c) metabolic flows; and (d) governance networks. This presentation provides an original systems framework for quantification of disaster resilience to global change. The framework is based on the definition of resilience as the ability of physical and social components of systems to absorb impacts of global change (system disturbance) while still being able to continue functioning. The disturbance depends on spatial and temporal perspectives and direct interaction between impacts of disturbance (physical, social, health, economic, and other) and adaptive capacity of the system to absorb disturbance.