Abstract
Community resilience to flooding depends, to a large extent, on the participation of community members to take more responsibility for enhancing their own resilience. The perception of social responsibility (SR) which is argued to be one of the antecedents influencing individual’s willingness to undertake resilient behaviours can significantly contribute to community resilience through individual and collective actions. Understanding of factors influencing the perceptions of SR of individuals within community might help with developing strategies to increase the perceptions of SR. This research explores perceptions of SR in relation to flooding for householders and local businesses and establishes their relationships with experience of flooding and demographic factors of age, gender and ethnicity. The data were obtained via a questionnaire survey of three communities in Birmingham and one community in South East London, UK, three with experience of flooding and one without. A total of 414 responses were received and used in the multiple regression analysis. The analysis identified ‘experience of flooding’, ‘age’ and ‘South Asian’ ethnic group as significant variables, suggesting that older individuals from South Asian ethnic groups with previous experience of flooding are likely to be more socially responsible than others without these attributes.
Highlights
Flooding is considered one of the biggest natural hazards, frequently experienced by communities in the UK (Fowler and Kilsby 2003; Harries 2013)
From a thorough review of literature from a number of academic fields and policy research, the research reported in the paper proposes the concept of social responsibility (SR) as an alternative way of understanding the behaviours of individuals to contribute to collective actions for enhancing community resilience to flooding
This paper reports an investigation on the effect of experience of flooding and the demographics of age, gender and ethnicity on the perceptions of SR in three communities in Birmingham and one in South East (SE) London, UK
Summary
Flooding is considered one of the biggest natural hazards, frequently experienced by communities in the UK (Fowler and Kilsby 2003; Harries 2013). Structural measures, such as flood defences, can fail if extreme floods exceed their design capacity and cannot completely protect communities. Exploring resilient behaviour in its context allows a better understanding of the perceptions that lead to these behaviours. From a thorough review of literature from a number of academic fields and policy research, the research reported in the paper proposes the concept of social responsibility (SR) as an alternative way of understanding the behaviours of individuals to contribute to collective actions for enhancing community resilience to flooding
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