Development and testing of a community flood resilience measurement tool
Authors
Adriana Keating
Karen Campbell
Michael Szoenyi
Colin McQuistan
David Nash
Meinrad Burer
Issue Date
26/01/2017
Type
Language
en
Keywords
Disasters
Alternative Title
Abstract
Given the increased attention on resilience strengthening in international humanitarian and development work, there is a growing need to invest in its measurement and the overall accountability of “resilience strengthening” initiatives. The purpose of this article is to present our framework and tool for measuring community-level resilience to flooding and generating empirical evidence and to share our experience in the application of the resilience concept. At the time of writing the tool is being tested in 75 communities across eight countries. Currently 88 potential sources of resilience are measured at the baseline (initial state) and end line (final state) approximately 2 years later. If a flood occurs in the community during the study period, resilience outcome measures are recorded. By comparing pre-flood characteristics to post-flood outcomes, we aim to empirically verify sources of resilience, something which has never been done in this field. There is an urgent need for the continued development of theoretically anchored, empirically verified, and practically applicable disaster resilience measurement frameworks and tools so that the field may (a) deepen understanding of the key components of “disaster resilience” in order to better target resilience-enhancing initiatives, and (b) enhance our ability to benchmark and measure disaster resilience over time, and (c) compare how resilience changes as a result of different capacities, actions and hazards.
Description
Citation
Keating, A., Campbell, K., Szoenyi, M., McQuistan, C., Nash, D., and Burer, M.: Development and testing of a community flood resilience measurement tool, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 77-101, 2017
Publisher
License
Journal
Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences