Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2006-08-24 12:00
Douglas Paton, School of Psychology, University of Tasmania, Launceston, Tasmania
Michele Daly, Kestrel Group, Auckland, New Zealand
Sara Williams, Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management, Wellington, New Zealand
Abstract
Many of the natural hazards that characterise the New Zealand hazardscape have the potential to destroy infrastructure and create prolonged disruption to peoples’ lives and societal functions. Developing a capacity to adapt to such possibilities is central to contemporary emergency management. After defining adaptive capacity, this paper discusses the development of a generic model comprising personal, community and institutional indicators. A generic approach was used to accommodate the social and hazard diversity that underpins Auckland’s complex natural hazard risk context. The model was tested in the context of a volcanic scenario in Auckland. The distribution of risk associated with this hazard fulfils the criteria necessary for testing a model with regional applicability.
While it was originally intended to use direct measures of personal and community capability, hazard and mitigation knowledge, and levels of community hazard planning, low prevailing levels of these factors precluded their use in the analysis. Instead, a measure of intention (to develop the generic capabilities to confront demands associated with different stages of disaster response and recovery) was used. Where levels of adoption of specific actions are low, intentions represent a valid predictor of future actions. Data were collected from a telephone survey of 297 residents and analysed using structural equation analysis. The analysis produced a model comprising three person-level (action coping, positive outcome expectancy, negative outcome expectancy), two community-level (community participation, ability to articulate community problems), and two institution-level factors (empowerment, trust).
The analysis produced a reliable, evidence-based model that represents a cost-effective device that can be used by emergency planners and other civic agencies to assess prevailing levels of resilience, guide its future development, facilitate planning decisions regarding the allocation of limited resources, and provide an empirically validated set of key performance indicators for the assessment, monitoring and evaluation of resilience. This format provides a comprehensive basis for modeling community resilience and for integrating this model with subsequent work on societal-level (e.g., economic, business continuity) resilience. The major limitation of this approach, and one common to all work in resilience, is that the utility of the model can only be guaranteed following analysis of responses to an actual disaster. It thus represents a model of resilience potential.
The implications of the model for planning, risk communication and public education, and community development are discussed. The model will facilitate the assessment of the capacity of individuals, communities and societal institutions to adapt, separately and collectively, to long term hazard consequences. The generic nature of the model means that it possesses the flexibility to assess resilience within an all-hazards environment and across a range of different communities. It provides a common measurement framework that can be used to compile local, regional and national assessments and facilitate their comparison. The implications of the model for the development of risk communication based on community engagement principles are discussed.