Developing an index of community competence in flood response for flood‐affected rural parishes on the Somerset Levels and Moors using composite and spatial datasets

Abstract

Community resilience can help individuals to cope with the impacts of flooding, and indices can provide a quantified assessment of the spatial distribution of resilience characteristics. A key aspect of community resilience is community competence, describing the ability of a community to self‐organise to tackle problems. Community competence has been underrepresented in existing community resilience indices, sometimes dismissed as too intangible for such analyses. This research aimed to develop the first UK index‐based approach to measuring community competence, using proxy datasets, as a tool to improve information available to decision‐makers about which communities are more likely to mobilise an effective response to local flooding. Rural parishes on the Somerset Levels and Moors were chosen for study. A theoretical framework was created, populated by proxy datasets and tested against field data collected through surveys and interviews in six parishes affected by the 2013–2014 winter floods. Fieldwork results were used to refine the index. The final index was verified using a paired t test against field data, giving a p‐value of .0248 (statistically significant at p ≤ .05). This index was also compared with a vulnerability index based on existing methodology and was found to provide additional insights.