Disaster response network analysis in rural Temerloh, Pahang communities during the Malaysia 2020-2021 flood

Abstract

Disaster risk reduction practices can be viewed as a collaborative environment managed by a diverse group of stakeholders including governments, private sectors and non-governmental organizations and research institutes as well as local communities. Insufficient collaboration and failure to coordinate across groups can lead to unsuccessful disaster recovery efforts. This study investigates the organizational roles and collaboration network among governmental and community organizations participating in Malaysia 2020-2021 flood response in rural Temerloh, Pahang. Social network analysis was conducted using Gephi open-source software to examine the general patterns of structures and the characteristics of the networks of stakeholders. News reports and organizational situation reports about the inter-organizational interaction and collaboration of stakeholders were identified using the manual coding analysis and analysed using Gephi, a social network analysis open-source software. The analysed results were ranked based on the categories of the centrality parameter, which highlights the extent of collaboration of key stakeholders in the network. The findings of this study indicate Malaysian Civil Defence (APM) and local government have high degree and betweenness centralities in the network. The number of private sectors active in disaster response was minimal, as were their centralities within the network, where they ranked last in every network measure. Rural communities and victims had lower betweenness centrality scores showed they had low network influence. NGOs are less involved in disaster response but are more involved in relief efforts such as cleaning muddy houses, recruiting medical and non-medical volunteers to help flood victims, distributing cleaning and healthcare supplies, and giving meals.