Community Resilience Assessment Research Articles

CI-STR: A capabilities-based interface to model socio-technical systems in disaster resilience assessment

This paper presents a Capabilities-based Interface for Socio-Technical Resilience (CI-STR) framework to model community disaster resilience, a process shaped by the complex interplay between social and technical factors. Central to this framework is the concept of human capabilities, defined as the opportunities for individuals to achieve valuable functionings. These capabilities serve as the interface that integrates individuals' social characteristics with community resources provided by infrastructure systems and businesses, both of which can undergo dramatic and rapid changes after a disaster, influencing the fulfillment of capabilities. The CI-STR framework highlights the feedback relationships among individual capabilities, where one capability can affect others through its impact on social and/or technical contexts throughout the post-disaster recovery process. In the social context, changes in capabilities directly reflect on individual's physical, financial, and social conditions, while technical feedback effects can alter the demand, supply, and operation of technical systems. The framework conceptualizes the recovery process as a series of activities driven by human capabilities and introduces three key features to model this dynamic process: capabilities-induced coping strategies, time-dependent and hierarchical capabilities, and capabilities in groups. These features capture the motivations and abilities for recovery activities, prioritize actions based on urgent needs, and assess group-level capabilities, providing unique insights into the temporal evolution of individuals' capabilities during recovery. The CI-STR framework enables comprehensive modeling of the human components and their interactions with technical and social elements, facilitating the assessment of community resilience and the development of recovery strategies across a wide range of community dimensions.

Adapting the Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities (BRIC) Framework for England: Development of a Community Resilience Index.

Community resilience results from complex interactions between people, places, and environments. Measuring community resilience aligns with policy objectives to enhance resilience to adverse events and address spatial disparities. The Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities (BRIC) is a composite index used to measure resilience. This study adapts the BRIC approach to develop a Community Resilience Index (CRI) for England. A systematic review informed indicator selection, and principal components analysis was used to define sub-indices and allocate weightings. The resulting CRI comprised 44 indicators across five domains, quantifying the resilience of English local authorities. Geographical comparisons were made using t-tests and ANOVA, and the CRI was validated against the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD). The mean CRI score for local authorities in England was 83.1, ranging from 53.3 to 108.9. Resilience scores showed spatial patterning, with London and the South East scoring highest. The North had lower CRI scores than the Midlands and South (p = 0.022). Coastal and rural areas also showed lower resilience (p < 0.001). CRI and IMD were inversely correlated (r = -0.564, p < 0.0001). This study contributes to the literature by providing the first detailed assessment of community resilience in England using an adapted BRIC framework. The CRI provides a framework for measuring community resilience in England and could be used to explore associations with health outcomes and guide funding allocation.

Exploring society‐to‐cells resilience among community members: A multidisciplinary study in outpatient clinics with diverse participant demographics

AbstractAimThis study explores and understands community members' resilience in outpatient clinics, considering various dimensions and types of resilience.DesignA cross‐sectional study.MethodsThis study was conducted in Saudi outpatient clinics from September to December 2023 and included 384 individuals chosen through systematic random sampling. Various tools were used, such as Social Cohesion and Trust Scale, Community Resilience Assessment Tool, Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences, Environmental Resilience Assessment, Economic Resilience Index, Connor‐Davidson Resilience Scale, Brief Resilience Scale, Resilience Scale for Adults and Healthcare Resilience Index.ResultsParticipants displayed a robust overall resilience level, as indicated by Total Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale score of 63.0 ± 9.0. Additionally, they demonstrated commendable levels of resilience in Total Brief Resilience Scale (56.04 ± 8.6), Resilience Scale for Adults (82.5 ± 7.2) and Healthcare Resilience Index (45.8 ± 5.5). These findings offer significant insights into psychological and emotional well‐being of the study population, highlighting their adaptive capacities and coping mechanisms across various life domains.ConclusionThis study provides valuable insights into the multidimensional nature of resilience in outpatient settings. The cross‐sectional design sets the groundwork for future longitudinal investigations, highlighting the need for a holistic approach to understanding and promoting resilience.ImpactThis study holds immediate implications for participants and their communities. It underscores the adaptive capacities and coping mechanisms prevalent in the outpatient population by revealing commendable resilience levels. This insight enhances individuals' psychological and emotional well‐being, contributing positively to the overall resilience and communal strength. Additionally, this study sheds light on how resilience among community members in Saudi Arabia relates to international advanced nursing communities, providing insight into their work.Patient or Public ContributionPatients who have received outpatient services in the past 6 months were purposively chosen to ensure a diverse representation across age, gender and socio‐economic backgrounds in this study.

Integrating GIS Community Resilience Assessment: Multidisaster Perspective

Integrating GIS Community Resilience Assessment: Multidisaster Perspective

An inquest into the resource mobilization and utilization capacity of local leaders for community resilience to agriculture-threatening droughts and floods

The main objective of the study was to analyze the relationship between resource mobilization and utilization capacity of local leaders and community resilience to droughts and floods in Lower Muzarabani District of the Zambezi Valley in Zimbabwe. Continual exposure to the hydro-climatic disasters of droughts and floods in Lower Muzarabani has accelerated the vulnerability of poor rural communities, plunging them deeper into poverty and preventing them from taking advantage of economic opportunities. With Lower Muzarabani faced with increasing magnitude, frequency and intensity of droughts and floods, the need for concerted efforts towards building disaster-resilient communities can never be overemphasized. The Conjoint Community Resilience Assessment Model (CCRAM) Household Questionnaire was used to collect data in face-to-face interviews among the sampled households. in Lower Muzarabani. The original CCRAM Model structure, consisting of 5 disaster-resilience factors (Leadership, Collective Efficacy, Preparedness, Place Attachment, and Social Trust) and 28 items, was used as the basis for the survey. The multi-stage sampling method was used in selecting the 200 households for the survey. The major finding obtained with the use of the Pearson Bivariate Correlation Analysis and Linear Regression Analysis was that the efficiency and effectiveness of resource mobilization and utilization activities (represented in the CCRAM model by the preparedness factor) significantly and positively influence community resilience to the hydro-climatic disasters of droughts and floods in Lower Muzarabani.

Assessment and Comparison of Community Resilience to Floods and Tsunamis in Padang, Indonesia

Community disaster resilience is very important for the City of Padang, where floods occur almost every year. The city is also now at the peak of the Sunda Megathrust cycle, which could cause a tsunami in the near future. This study aims to assess and compare community resilience to different types of natural disasters that cause either shocks or stresses. Data were collected through the distribution of questionnaires to 150 respondents and field observations. The analysis employed a quantitative approach to assess community disaster resilience based on indices of social, community capacity, economic, and infrastructure dimensions. The highest values for the social dimension were found in both floods and tsunamis, scoring equally at 0.73, indicating high resilience. In contrast, the lowest values for the economic dimension were observed in floods (0.35) and tsunamis (0.32), indicating low resilience. A significant difference was noted in the community capacity dimension, with a resilience value of 0.50 for floods and 0.34 for tsunamis, indicating moderate and low resilience, respectively. The results of this analysis suggest that the community is more prepared to face floods, as evidenced by higher values in the community capacity and economic dimensions compared to tsunamis. Therefore, interventions to increase community resilience are needed. This study recommends the need for an integrative and comprehensive approach, beyond existing efforts, in increasing community resilience related to floods and tsunamis.

Community coherence, collective efficacy and civic engagement in student and youth councils: The mediating effect of community resilience

AbstractThis study examines relationships between community coherence and collective efficiency, and civic engagement, and the role of community resilience within such relationships, as seen in youth council frameworks. The participants included a group of 223 members of youth councils in Israel and a group of 568 non‐members, aged 14–18. The quantitative research tool comprised the Civic Engagement questionnaire; Conjoint Community Resiliency Assessment Measure; Sence of Community Coherence Questionnaire; and Collective Efficacy Questionnaire. Positive relationships were found between community coherence and collective efficiency, and civic engagement for both groups, yet community resilience was only a mediating factor in this relationship for the non‐member group.

Community‐level post‐hazard functionality methodology for buildings exposed to floods

AbstractThis paper presents a building‐level post‐hazard functionality model for communities exposed to flood hazards including the interdependencies between the population, buildings, and infrastructure. An existing portfolio of building archetypes is used to model the post‐hazard physical flood functionality of different building typologies within the community with the goal of supporting resilience‐informed decision‐making. Specific fragility‐based flood functionality curves were developed for this portfolio to quantify the exceedance probability of a prescribed set of functionality states. While the physical functionality of buildings is significant to the total functionality of a building and community resilience assessment, the functionality of utilities such as power and water along with the accessibility of the household to essential services such as schools and hospitals is crucial to measure their total functionality. Therefore, functionality models for essential infrastructure were developed to assess housing unit‐ and building‐level functionality following flood hazards. This model also accounts for the functionality of the road network following a flood hazard to identify the level of accessibility of households to different services (e.g., schools, hospitals, gas stations, shopping centers, etc.). The main novelty of this paper is the ability to quantify the total functionality of buildings based on a socio‐physical formulation after including the interdependencies between the functionality of the physical systems and the subsequent functionality of the socio‐economic systems, which is key to measuring resilience at the community level. This was evident from the analysis results using a testbed community of Lumberton, NC, showing that the physical functionality is not sufficient to quantify the total post‐hazard functionality of buildings and that the functionality of other subsystems such as utilities and accessibility to essential services are also needed to quantify the total functionality of buildings and the livability of households.

Dynamic assessment of community resilience in China: empirical surveys from three provinces.

Strengthening the construction of community resilience and reducing disaster impacts are on the agenda of the Chinese government. The COVID-19 pandemic could alter the existing community resilience. This study aims to explore the dynamic change trends of community resilience in China and analyze the primary influencing factors of community resilience in the context of COVID-19, as well as construct Community Resilience Governance System Framework in China. A community advancing resilience toolkit (CART) was used to conduct surveys in Guangdong, Sichuan, and Heilongjiang provinces in China in 2015 and 2022, with community resilience data and information on disaster risk awareness and disaster risk reduction behaviors of residents collected. The qualitative (in-depth interview) data from staffs of government agencies and communities (n = 15) were pooled to explore Community Resilience Governance System Framework in China. Descriptive statistics analysis and t-tests were used to investigate the dynamic development of community resilience in China. Hierarchical regression analysis was performed to explore the main influencing factors of residential community resilience with such socio-demographic characteristics as gender and age being controlled. The results indicate that community resilience in China has improved significantly, presenting differences with statistical significance (p < 0.05). In 2015, connection and caring achieved the highest score, while disaster management achieved the highest score in 2022, with resources and transformative potential ranking the lowest in their scores in both years. Generally, residents presented a high awareness of disaster risks. However, only a small proportion of residents that were surveyed had participated in any "community-organized epidemic prevention and control voluntary services" (34.9%). Analysis shows that core influencing factors of community resilience include: High sensitivity towards major epidemic-related information, particular attention to various kinds of epidemic prevention and control warning messages, participation in epidemic prevention and control voluntary services, and formulation of epidemic response plans. In this study, we have constructed Community Resilience Governance System Framework in China, which included community resilience risk awareness, community resilience governance bodies, community resilience mechanisms and systems. During the pandemic, community resilience in China underwent significant changes. However, community capital was, is, and will be a weak link to community resilience. It is suggested that multi-stages assessments of dynamic change trends of community resilience should be further performed to analyze acting points and core influencing factors of community resilience establishment at different stages.

Insights from China: understanding the impact of community resilience and government trust in psychological resilience and anxiety during COVID-19.

COVID-19 has the potential to greatly impact an individual mental well-being. However, an individual's psychological resilience, combined with support from their community and government disaster relief efforts can aid individuals in confronting crises with a positive mindset. The purpose of this study is to investigate how individuals, across three dimensions of individual resilience perception, community resilience perception, and government trust perception, mitigate individual anxiety during COVID-19. This study employed an online survey method that was not restricted by geographical location. Data collection took place from January 2022 to June 2022, and the valid questionnaires covered all 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in China. The assessment of community resilience was conducted employing the Conjoint Community Resilience Assessment Measure-10 (CCRAM-10). Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was also used to examine the relationship between community resilience, government trust, individual psychological resilience, and anxiety. The SEM results reveal that individual psychological resilience is significantly negatively correlated with anxiety (b = -0.099, p < 0.001), while there is a significant positive correlation between community resilience perception (b = 0.403, p < 0.001) and government trust (b = 0.364, p < 0.001) with individual psychological resilience. Furthermore, government trust perception enhances psychological resilience, consequently reducing anxiety (b = -0.036, p < 0.001). The results also revealed that women and increasing age had a mitigating effect on individual anxiety during COVID-19. Individual's mental state is influenced on multiple dimensions during COVID-19. Not only can individual psychological resilience better cope with anxiety, but support at the community and government dimensions has a significant impact on individual psychology. These resources can enhance the resilience of both individuals and communities, helping them better cope with stress and difficulties.

Quality of life and resilience among Muslim minority in Israel: Implications for global health

Abstract Background Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) indicators can reveal unmet health needs and disparities in various population subgroups. Minority communities often experience lower HRQoL and community resilience (CR) levels compared to majority populations. In Israel, Muslims constitute approximately 18% (1.669 million) of the total population, confronting challenges related to healthcare access, social determinants of health, and CR. This study aims to investigate the HRQoL in different Muslim subgroups in Israel and its association with CR, providing insights of broader global implications for public health policies addressing minority communities. Methods A survey was conducted among three Muslim subgroups in Israel, including Arab-Muslims, Bedouin-Muslims, and Circassians Muslims. The survey assessed demographics; HRQoL measured by the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL) tool; personal resilience; and CR measured by the Conjoint Community Resiliency Assessment Measure (CCRAM). Data analysis included descriptive and analytic statistics. Pearson's correlation coefficient determined the association between WHOQOL levels and CCRAM scores. Results Of 461 participants, Circassian Muslims reported the highest levels of quality of life (M = 3.74±0.34), while the Bedouin sub-group reported the lowest (M = 3.37±0.46). CR was significantly higher among Circassians Muslims (M = 3.81±0.64) compared to Arab-Muslim (M = 2.58±0.74) and Bedouin-Muslim (M = 2.48±0.74) subgroups. HRQoL was positively associated (p &amp;lt; 0.001) with CR for the entire Muslim population. Conclusions This study highlights the relationship between social determinants of health, lifestyle, and unique characteristics of sub-groups within the Muslim minority in Israel. The findings demonstrate the diversity among Muslim minority populations and suggests that there is a need for tailored and customized interventions focused on the variable needs of vulnerable subgroups, like the Bedouin Muslims. Key messages • Minority health study in Israel emphasizes diverse HRQoL &amp; CR, urging tailored public health policies. • Focused on minority health, Bedouin Muslims need customized interventions to improve HRQoL &amp; CR.

The impact of adaptive management on community resilience in arid rural areas facing environmental change: An integrated analytical framework

Environmental variability poses a major risk to rural communities and farmers, particularly in dryland regions. Effective adaptive strategies must be implemented to promote the transformation, adaptation, and sustainable development of rural areas located in arid regions worldwide. The adaptive management of rural transformation can influence community resilience by changing the elemental structures of social–ecological systems. However, few studies have reported an assessment framework between system resilience and adaptive management. We developed an integrated analytical framework to fully estimate the impact of adaptation strategy implementation on different levels of community resilience, considering the differences between spatial geographic units and measuring changes in different temporal scales. We applied this framework to a case study of China’s Minqin Oasis, assessing the community resilience of rural areas facing environmental change. We found that (1) rural community resilience in Minqin Oasis has obvious spatial and temporal evolution characteristics, with the overall rural community resilience showing a decreasing trend over the past 30 years, while the spatial distribution of community resilience tended to be balanced for the period 2011–2017; (2) the main obstacles to the improvement of rural community resilience include wind and sand control, ecological water resources, economic levels, and the adjustment of the agricultural economic structure; and (3) Adaptation strategies based on the priority of ecological restoration and government-led mandatory policy are not conducive to the improvement of community resilience. This study provides a clear framework for linking adaptive management and community resilience assessment in the context of climate change or environmental risk. It also offers an effective means for policymakers to direct strategic resources to the geographic spaces where they are most required. Case-based research results provide an evaluation reference for the adaptive management of arid rural areas in the face of environmental change worldwide.

Community resilience across Australia towards natural hazards: an application of the Conjoint Community Resiliency Assessment Measurement.

Natural hazards can turn into disasters when not managed well. An important part of disaster risk reduction is to understand how well communities are prepared for natural hazards and how well they can cope with and recover from shocks in the long term. This research assesses self-reported community resilience and asks what makes a community resilient, using Australia as a case study. It reports on an Australian-wide online survey which included questions related to the Conjoint Community Resiliency Assessment Measurement, a subjective indicator, as well as questions about risk perception, well-being, and self-efficacy. Community resilience was found to be moderately high but scores for community leadership and preparedness were low. Perceived community resilience was positively correlated with age and those with high scores for self-efficacy and well-being. There was, as expected, an inverse relationship between reliance on external support during natural hazards and self-efficacy. The results complement previous studies which used different measures of community resilience.

Supply/demand interface for disaster resilience assessment of interdependent infrastructure systems considering privacy and security concerns

The ability to swiftly restore functionality following an extreme event is an essential characteristic of a disaster resilient infrastructure system. However, the restoration of functionality of a single infrastructure system often depends on the functionality of other systems that provide resources the considered system needs to operate and recover. Furthermore, infrastructure systems are crucial for the post-disaster functional recovery of the building stock of a community. Thus, community resilience assessment and improvement require a system-of-systems perspective, considering the post-disaster performance of several interdependent infrastructure systems and the building stock at the same time. One of the principal issues in resilience assessment and improvement is that such system-of-systems consideration may require detailed information on the vulnerability and recoverability of numerous components. While such information might be available for certain systems (e.g., housing), for others, the information might be unavailable due to privacy and security concerns (e.g., electric power supply systems or buildings housing important functions). In this paper, we propose a supply/demand interface between the system-of-systems simulator, defined within the interdependent Resilience - Compositional Demand/Supply (iRe-CoDeS) framework, and the individual infrastructure system simulators. Such an interface can be used for regional recovery simulation and resilience assessment of interdependent infrastructure systems, while allowing infrastructure system operators to maintain system’s privacy and/or security. We define a tiered supply/demand interface, where the amount of information provided by individual systems can range from system-level to component-level post-disaster evolution of resource supply and demand, assessed using expert opinion or confidential in-house models. The proposed supply/demand interfaces are illustrated in a semi-virtual case study, assessing the seismic resilience of North-East San Francisco, focusing on the effect of interdependent infrastructure on the functional recovery of residential buildings.

Community Resilience Assessment of Cohesion and Connectedness, Leadership, Response and Preparedness to Flooding among Coastal Communities in South-South, Nigeria

Community Resilience Assessment of Cohesion and Connectedness, Leadership, Response and Preparedness to Flooding among Coastal Communities in South-South, Nigeria

Digital Religious Communication and the Facilitation of Social Resilience, Part 1: Theoretical Model and Proposal

This article looks at the relationship of digital religious communication to “social resilience” or “community resilience.” The importance of, in particular, narratival communication of meaning for group resilience has been highlighted by Houston et al. (2015b). Religious narratives as reflected communication of meaning are recognized to have quantified themselves in communities’ digital communications, thereby rendering themselves accessible to empirical assessment. From this perspective, we present a model for measuring community resilience quantitatively. Existing resilience models from research on ecological, mechanical, and community resilience were combined via their shared resilience trajectories to design the model. To further facilitate the empirical application of the model, we provide a conceptualization of digital religious communication and its viability as an effective indicator of community resilience. One significant advancement of this focus on digital communications and community resilience assessment consists in the qualities characterizing such communications as both communicators’ own self-prompted communications while also being quantifiable. This enables reconstruction and analysis of a more organic communication environment than that made accessible in survey-based approaches while also capable of achieving a higher level of representativity than ethnographic or case study approaches.

Community Resilience Assessment and Identification of Barriers in the Context of Population Aging: A Case Study of Changchun City, China

As a susceptible demographic, elderly individuals are more prone to risks during sudden disasters. With the exacerbation of aging, new challenges arise for urban disaster reduction and prevention. To address this, the key is to establish a community-scale resilience assessment framework based on the aging background and to summarize factors that influence the resilience level of communities. This approach is a crucial step towards seeking urban disaster prevention and reduction from the bottom up, and serves as an important link to enhance the capacity of urban disaster reduction. This paper explores community resilience evaluation indicators under the background of aging, builds a community resilience evaluation index system based on the Pressure–State–Response, uses the entropy weight method to weigh the indicators, and carries out a resilience evaluation of 507 communities in the main urban area of Changchun. The empirical results indicate significant spatial differentiation of community resilience in the main urban area of Changchun. Moreover, the regional development is unbalanced, showing a spatial distribution pattern of weakness in the middle and strength in the periphery. The ring road network highlights the difference between the new and old urban areas. The high contribution indexes of community resilience in the main urban area of Changchun were concentrated on disaster relief materials input, community self-rescue ability, and disaster cognition ability. Finally, strategies to improve community resilience are proposed from the perspectives of stress, state, and response, emphasizing community residents’ participation, conducting disaster prevention and reduction training, and improving community response-ability.

District-based Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities (DBRIC) for assessment of a Global South city

Assessing resilience at the community level is essential for evidence-based planning and policymaking. However, issues such as data availability and accessibility make community resilience assessment a challenging task. Development and implementation of resilience assessment models are particularly challenging in Global South cities that lack access to skilled personnel and updated databases. Using the Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities (BRIC) model, developed for county-level resilience assessment in the United States, this article aims to create an urban district-level resilience index called District-based Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities (DBRIC). We utilized DBRIC to measure the resilience of Tehran districts and examine how it has changed from 2006 to 2016. The selection of these years was primarily influenced by the data availability. The results show that 45.5% of the districts of Tehran experienced a decrease in the DBRIC index by up to -300%. The decline was particularly noteworthy in terms of social and community capital. Further, the results highlight relatively less resilient districts that require specific attention from planners and policy makers. The findings of the study can inform local planners and policymakers in their efforts towards enhancing resilience. They can also be of interest to policymakers in other Global South cities with similar conditions.

Modeling Tree Damages and Infrastructure Disruptions under Strong Winds for Community Resilience Assessment

Tree failures under extreme gusts could exacerbate storm damages to critical infrastructures, including the power delivery system, transportation network, or residential buildings. Nevertheless, the effects of tree damages have largely been excluded in existing community resilience assessment frameworks. To this end, presently, a model integrating tree failure consequences with community-level resilience evaluation is proposed for improved damage and recovery projections, considering the interconnected transportation, power delivery, and residential building systems. Tree failure probabilities are estimated based fragility analysis of the tree structural response under gusts. Proximity analysis is conducted to quantify the threat of trees striking critical infrastructures. The tree and wind risk assessments are integrated with fragility analysis of the power distribution system timber utility poles and the vulnerability analysis of low-rise wooden residential buildings. The methodology is carried out on a case study of a community in the northeastern US. The results indicate utility pole failures and roadway debris accumulations and blockages initiate when wind speeds reach around 40 m/s (90 mi/h). Although the inclusion of tree failures increase pole failure probability failure, tree-induced damages to residential buildings were found minimal due to the relatively lower heights of the sparser trees in the studied suburban region. Storm impacts are linked to the household level, including structural damages and their restoration times, increases in travel time to the main road, and probability of losing power. Vegetation management strategies are found to effectively reduce the building and powerline damages and debris buildup on roads.

Novel Use of Social Media Big Data and Artificial Intelligence for Community Resilience Assessment (CRA) in University Towns

University towns face many challenges in the 21st century due to urbanization, increased student population, and higher educational institutions’ inability to house all their students on-campus. For university towns to be resilient and sustainable, the challenges facing them must be assessed and addressed. To carry out community resilience assessments, this study adopted a novel methodological framework to harness the power of artificial intelligence and social media big data (user-generated content on Twitter) to carry out remote studies in six university towns on six continents using Text Mining, Machine Learning, and Natural Language Processing. Cultural, social, physical, economic, and institutional and governance community challenges were identified and analyzed from the historical big data and validated using an online expert survey. This study gives a global overview of the challenges university towns experience due to studentification and shows that artificial intelligence can provide an easy, cheap, and more accurate way of conducting community resilience assessments in urban communities. The study also contributes to knowledge of research in the new normal by proving that longitudinal studies can be completed remotely.