Indicators Of Social Resilience Research Articles

The correlation between social resilience and flooding in low-income communities: a case of Mzuzu City, Malawi

PurposeFloods are among the most frequent urban disasters in cities of the global south where capacity and resource limitations collude with rapid urbanization to force many poor people to live in flood prone settlements. This paper investigated the impact of flood disasters on social resilience of low-income communities in Mzuzu City, Malawi.Design/methodology/approachUsing a quantitative design, 345 households were interviewed in Zolozolo West and Mzilawaingwe Wards in Mzuzu City. The survey instrument achieved a 100% response rate. A reliability test using Cronbach’s alpha showed internal consistency of survey instrument at 0.711 for Zolozolo West Ward and 0.730 for Mzilawaingwe Ward.FindingsOut of the eleven indicators of social resilience used in this study, six indicators showed no correlation with the outcome expectancy of social resilience. Of the five indicators that showed relationship with social resilience, only improvisation and inventiveness (rs = 0.356, p = 0.000 at two-tailed, n = 213; rs = 0.610, p = 0.000 at two-tailed, n = 132) had a strong relationship with the outcome expectancy of social resilience.Research limitations/implicationsThe study was only conducted in two settlements; caution should be observed when generalizing the results.Practical implicationsPractitioners should ensure that social resilience strengthening mechanisms are incorporated in flood risk management as they strive to achieve SDG 11 of making cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.Originality/valueThe study showed how floods can negatively impact the social resilience of low-income communities, which is different from common knowledge that floods can enhance community social resilience.

System and structural modelling of social vulnerability of the population: a conceptual and methodological approach

The article proves that social resilience is the ability of the system to provide dynamic equilibrium. This approach made it possible to calculate empirical indicators of social resilience within the threshold limit and optimal values. The article substantiates that the emergence of new threats changes the previous state of the system, which can also be within acceptable limits (state of dynamic equilibrium). Social resilience enters into a new state, with different characteristics from the previous one, while not only the structure of the system (composition of elements) changes, but also the system relationships between indicators and the strength of influence of structural components on the system. The authors suggest carrying out studies of social vulnerability through the gradation of social resilience levels, which is a structural and compositional characteristic of the state of the economic system and reflects the functioning of such spheres as the quality of social and labour relations, the level and quality of life and demographic, environmental, and food security. The article proves that the effectiveness of monitoring social resilience for assessing the social vulnerability of the population correlates with the principles of complexity, consistency, hierarchy, adequacy, unambiguity, and continuity. The authors use a methodical approach to the calculation of vectors of threshold values of indicators of social resilience – (1) lower limit – upper limit; (2) lower optimal – upper optimal, which characterizes the permissible interval, the intersection of which means a violation of the equilibrium state. The proposed methodical approach to the study of social vulnerability is based on the formation of a system of components and indicators (grouped into regressors and catalysts), the substantiation of a rational methodology for normalizing indicators, determination of constant or dynamic coefficients of weight significance of indicators and components, as well as threshold values. The conceptual task of regulating catalysts, regressors, and components of social resistance is to determine their level (indicator value) in the system of indicators, which will ensure that the values of the compositional coefficient are found within the optimal threshold values.

Community garden practices as indicators of social resilience

ISHS XXXI International Horticultural Congress (IHC2022): International Symposium on Urban Horticulture for Sustainable Food Security (UrbanFood2022) Community garden practices as indicators of social resilience

Effectiveness Of Using Village Funds In Improving Village Status Based On The Building Village Index (Idm) In Kuantan Singingi Regency

The Village Building Index in its application is used to map village development and independence based on the implementation of village laws. The index of developing villages is measured through three indicators, namely indicators of economic resilience, indicators of environmental resilience and indicators of social resilience. Identification of problems related to the effectiveness of using village funds based on the developing village index (IDM) in Kuantan Singingi Regency has not been effective, besides that the village government has obstacles in the use of village funds. The purpose of this study was to determine how effective the use of village funds was in improving village status based on the developing village index (IDM) in Kuantan Singingi Regency. Data collection techniques used in this study are through observation, interviews and documentation. Based on the results of the study, it shows that the effectiveness of using village funds in improving village status based on the developing village index (IDM) in Kuantan Singingi Regency is assessed according to the principle of using village funds according to village laws, namely to create villages with independent qualifications.

Selecting Key Resilience Indicators for Indigenous Community Using Fuzzy Delphi Method

Resilience is the concept that emphasizes change and adaptation and focuses on the capacity to absorb shocks and still maintain function. How can an Indigenous community assess the resilience of the tribe when it is affected by an array of obstacles? What are the assessment factors of resilience? This study consolidated relevant literature on resilience through in-depth interviews and the Fuzzy Delphi Method (FDM) to identify the resilience indicators for Indigenous community development. It eventually identified 5 domains, 26 types, and 45 evaluation indicators. The final indicators are divided into five domains: economic, social, cultural, environmental, and policy. The social resilience indicators: “the ability to overcome obstacles”, “the ability to accept stimuli”, and “the degree of connection between tribal and external resources” were not mentioned in the past studies of resilience. For the first time, the following cultural resilience indicator was also included: “maintain the traditional ancestral teachings and respect for ancestral norms”. Finally, this study suggests that follow-up research may extend these resilience indicators and apply them to other Indigenous tribes. These 26 types of assessment will also be the factors that must be considered in the process of adaptation and reconstruction when the community is faced with emergencies or catastrophes.

Social resilience and welfare systems under COVID-19: A European comparative perspective

COVID-19 and the corresponding economic lockdown and income loss for large segments of population was something unexpected for all European countries, and their welfare systems were not prepared to protect their citizens from such threats. Social resilience is becoming used in disaster risk analysis, and preferred to that of vulnerability, to refer the ability of the social entities to respond to such challenges, enabling them to cope and adjust to adverse events. It has been more recently used in the context of the European Union (EU) about COVID-19, regarding the creation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility, intended to mitigate the economic and social impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The global nature of this pandemic makes possible and relevant a deeper understanding of social resilience at different levels of analysis: international, national, local and individual/household levels. This article aims to contribute to this by proposing a set of indicators of social resilience in face of COVID-19, supported in a theoretical framework developed herein, and comparing the performance of a selection of EU countries with distinct welfare system configurations, with different roles played by the government, the market, the social organizations and the families. Using comparable statistical data at macro level and data concerning the responses of government to the economic and social effects of the pandemic, we produce a synthetic index of social resilience, combining resilience on coping and resilience on adapting. We relate the differences found in coping and adapting with the welfare system configurations of these countries.

Analysis of the state of social resilience among different socio-demographic groups during the COVID- 19 pandemic

This study examines social resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic by analyzing the state of selected indicators among different Socio-Demographic Groups (SDGs) in Tehran, the capital city of Iran. Data were collected via a questionnaire survey. The survey was administered between January and April 2021 and the total number of properly completed questionnaires was 786. The findings show that, first, almost all of the Social Resilience Indicators (SRIs) have experienced negative and unfavorable changes during the pandemic in Tehran. This is remarkably the case for social coping style, social capital, social relationship, and social adaptability. Second, no significant difference in the state of SRIs was observed among different SDGs, except for the age group of 17–20, educational groups with diploma and post-diploma education, and the educational occupational group. Third, testing the impact of the state of SRIs on SDGs indicated a positive and statistically significant impact in four paths, namely SRIs with gender, SRIs with age, SRIs with Job, and SRIs with education. Our results can shed more light on SRIs that can be used to measure the state of social resilience in communities affected by the pandemic, like Tehran. They can also provide insights into actions that should be taken by planners and policy makers to enhance resilience in other communities with similar conditions.

Social Resilience Indicators for Pandemic Crises

Coping and recovery capabilities in natural disasters (e.g. earthquakes, floods) depend to a large part on social resilience. Prior disaster studies, which frequently examine natural disasters, suggest a variety of indicators to assess the social resilience of a region or country. In this paper, we discuss whether the most common disaster-related social resilience indicators like social cohesion and support can meaningfully capture social resilience in pandemics. Pandemic crises typically comprise physical distancing and other social restrictions. Hence, social cohesion and support must take other forms than is known from natural disasters. We suggest pandemic-tailored social resilience indicators and an overall social resilience indicator (SRI) that can help to assess social resilience during pandemic crises. Applying the suggested set of indicators to a sample of 1,500 residents surveyed in Switzerland during the summer 2020 phase of the COVID-19 crisis reveals low levels of social support and community engagement. On the other hand, the willingness to help others seems to be high. The study concludes with recommendations on how to strengthen social resilience in pandemic crises.

Assessing social resilience in disaster management

The key challenge in social resilience assessment is to translate abstract and complex concepts to enable its measurement. Existing measures of social resilience indicators are problematic as these do not necessarily account for the multi-faceted and dynamic nature of the indicators. Therefore, innovative and reliable measurement approaches are required to improve the incorporation of social resilience measures in disaster management policy and practice. The adoption of a surrogate approach, which has received limited attention in a disaster management context, can help to overcome the conceptual challenges inherent in measuring such indicators by capturing key facets of the target indicator and facilitate robust social resilience measurement. This manuscript presents a set of potential surrogates for social resilience indicators identified in an exploratory research investigation. The data was collected using a case study approach utilising interviews with disaster practitioners and policy makers. The data analysis revealed six potential surrogates for each social resilience indicator. The identified potential surrogates provide a reliable measure of social resilience in policy and practice to devise appropriate strategies for enhancing social resilience by regularly monitoring and updating the resilience status using locally available administrative data. The potential surrogates identified to measure social resilience indicators can also be replicated with proper contextualisation in different geographic and hazard exposure settings.

Measuring social resilience: Trade-offs, challenges and opportunities for indicator models in transforming societies

More than any other facet of resilience, social resilience raises the inherent tension within the concept between identity or persistence, and transformation. Is a community the people who make it up, or the geography or physical infrastructure they share? What about the resilience of communities that transform, as a result of a sudden disaster or over time? In this paper, we explore the impact of this tension on how social resilience indicators can be developed and used. Beginning with a close look at the ways in which our concepts of resilience and our use of indicators interact, several points are raised. First, that how we identify a community and frame its resilience conveys particular conceptualisations of resilience, which in turn have normative implications for the communities themselves. In part, this is because of the difficulty in capturing important adaptations and transformative actions within and by those communities. Further, measuring and comparing the resilience of communities, and aspects of quantification that go along with selecting, aggregating and comparing indicator values, ensure that the decisions made about how indicators ought to be used carry normative weight. Through this exploration, we identify several normative implications of choices in indicator design and application. We conclude with recommendations for moving forward with greater transparency and responsibility toward those communities whose social resilience we hope to measure in order to improve.

Selection of surrogates to assess social resilience in disaster management using multi-criteria decision analysis

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a framework for evaluation and ranking of potential surrogates to select the optimum surrogates and test it for five selected social resilience indicators in a disaster context. Innovative resilience assessment approaches are required to capture key facets of resilience indicators to deepen the understanding of social resilience. Surrogates can adequately represent the target indicator that is difficult to measure, as surrogates are defined as key facets of a target indicator.Design/methodology/approachTo optimize the selection of surrogates, five key evaluation criteria were used. Disaster management experts completed an online survey questionnaire and evaluated three potential surrogate options. Surrogates were then ranked using PROMETHEE, a multi-experts multi-criteria group decision analysis technique.FindingsA framework was devised to evaluate and rank potential surrogates to assess social resilience in a disaster context. The findings revealed that the first ranked surrogate can be the most critical facet of a resilience indicator of measure. In most instances, highly experienced cohort of practitioners and policy makers have aligned their preferences of surrogates with the overall ranking of surrogates obtained in this study.Research limitations/implicationsThe surrogate approach can also be tested in different disaster and geographic contexts. The resilience indicators used in this study to explore surrogates are largely applicable in all contexts. However, the preference of surrogates may also vary in different contexts.Practical implicationsOnce the surrogate is selected through an evaluation process proposed in this paper, the resilience status can be updated regularly with the help of the selected surrogate. The first ranked surrogate for each of the social resilience indicator can be applied, since the findings revealed that the first ranked surrogate can be the most critical facet in the context of the social resilience indicator being measured.Social implicationsThe framework and the selection of optimal surrogates will assist to overcome the conceptual and methodical challenges of social resilience assessment. The applicability of selected surrogates by practitioners and policymakers in disaster management will play a vital role in resilience investment decision-making at the community level.Originality/valueThe surrogate approach has been used in the fields of ecology and clinical medicine to overcome the challenges in measuring difficult to measure indicators. The use of surrogates in this study to measure social resilience indicators in a disaster context is innovative, which was not yet explored in resilience measurement in disaster management.Graphical abstract

The future is behind us: traditional ecological knowledge and resilience over time on Hawai‘i Island

Local and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) systems are thought to be particularly valuable for fostering adaptation and resilience to environmental and climate change. This paper investigates the role of TEK in adaptation to social–ecological change at the community level. It is unique because it takes a longitudinal perspective and draws on historical and contemporary data. We focus on a case study from Hawai‘i where TEK, cultural identity, and their relationships to environmental stewardship are locally seen as the basis for social resilience. We describe how coping strategies and indicators of social resilience have changed over time; the role of TEK in resilience; and the implications for climate change adaptation. Our results show the relative contributions of some strategies to cope with social–ecological change have decreased (e.g., forecasting, storage, and mobility), while others have maintained but adapted (e.g., livelihood diversification, knowledge transmission and storage, communal pooling, and cultural identity), underscoring the importance of considering multiple strategies together to promote community resilience. The article argues that understanding how people responded in the past can suggest relevant and culturally appropriate ways—through specific language, values, reference points, and indicators expressed in narratives, proverbs, and songs—of situating climate change and framing adaptation planning. This research also shows that TEK is vital for adaptation to environmental change broadly and climate change in particular, for subsistence-based, indigenous, rural communities, as well as place-based communities living in mixed economies. Thus, it is relevant for the larger Pacific Islands region and other areas that represent a continuum from rural-to-urban and traditional-to-global economies and lifeways.

What is ‘social resilience’? Perspectives of disaster researchers, emergency management practitioners, and policymakers in New Zealand

There is an increasing need to evaluate the underlying drivers of community resilience. Much of the existing research on resilience measurements assesses factors pertaining to a spectrum of societal domains that includes social, economic, institutional, infrastructural, and natural environments. Research has focused on the importance of social resilience – the capacity of people and communities to deal with external stresses and shocks – and how it contributes to community preparedness, disaster response, and post-disaster recovery. As a component of community resilience, social resilience has been examined by researchers across a multitude of academic disciplines. As a result, there are tremendous variations in how this concept is assessed. To better understand what social resilience means at the community level, this research examined the perspectives of hazards researchers, emergency management practitioners, and policymakers from New Zealand's Wellington region. The results of their responses revealed similarities in how social resilience is perceived across these three sectors. Overall, the most frequently mentioned social resilience attributes are community gathering place, followed by social support, knowledge of risks and consequences, collective efficacy, and sense of community. Through synthesising their responses and the literature, a core set of social resilience indicators is proposed.

Recognizing Stewardship Practices as Indicators of Social Resilience: In Living Memorials and in a Community Garden

Resilience theory has received increased attention from researchers across a range of disciplines who have developed frameworks and articulated categories of indicators; however, there has been less discussion of how to recognize, and therefore support, social resilience at the community level, especially in urban areas. The value of urban environmental stewardship for supporting social-ecological functioning and improving quality of life in cities has been documented, but recognizing it as a strategy for strengthening social resilience to respond to future disturbances has not been fully explored. Here we address the question: How can social resilience indicators be operationalized as stewardship practices in an urban context? Using a deductive coding approach drawing upon existing resilience frameworks we analyze qualitative data from community managed-open spaces in the New York City area that have responded to various chronic presses and acute disturbances including a hurricane and a terrorist attack. In each case we identify and characterize the type of grounded, empirically observable stewardship practices that demonstrate the following indicators of social resilience at the community level: place attachment, social cohesion, social networks, and knowledge exchange and diversification. The process of operationalizing abstract indicators of social resilience has important implications for managers to support social (and ecological) resilience in the specific areas where stewardship takes place, as well as potentially having greater effects that bridge beyond the spatial and temporal boundaries of the site. We conclude by suggesting how researchers and practitioners might learn from our examples so they can recognize resilience in other sites in order to both inform research frameworks and strengthen practice and programming, while keeping larger institutional structures and context in mind.

Qualitative Indicators of Social Resilience in Small-Scale Fishing Communities: An Emphasis on Perceptions and Practice

Qualitative Indicators of Social Resilience in Small-Scale Fishing Communities: An Emphasis on Perceptions and Practice