A temporal framework of social resilience indicators of communities to flood, case studies: Wagga wagga and Kempsey, NSW, Australia

Abstract

There is considerable research interest in the meaning and measurement of resilience to hazards and disasters. However,there are no studies to our knowledge that have made a unified framework of social resilience indicators across the three phases of disaster: pre-disaster, response and recovery. Utilizing a qualitative, multiple case approach the objectives of this project were therefore to (i) identify the most essential social resilience indicators within communities from previous studies (ii) assess these indicators through interviews with experts within the NSW State Emergency Service in regards to flooding of two case studies (iii)classify these indicators for each phase of the disaster cycle.The results of this study provide a novel and general framework for social resilience with the aim of enhancing resilience within communities in different disaster phases.