INTERAGENCY DISASTER MANAGEMENT

Interagency Disaster Management

Interagency Disaster Management

Introduction

Many attempts have been made to define 'resilience'. The variety of academic definitions and concepts can be confusing. For operational purposes it is more useful to work with broad definitions and commonly understood characteristics. Using this approach, system or community resilience can be understood as:

capacity to absorb stress or destructive forces through resistance or adaptation

capacity to manage, or maintain certain basic functions and structures, during disastrous events

capacity to recover or 'bounce back' after an event

'Resilience' is generally seen as a broader concept than 'capacity' because it goes beyond the specific behaviour, strategies and measures for risk reduction and management that are normally understood as capacities. However, it is difficult to separate the concepts clearly. In everyday usage, 'capacity' and 'coping capacity' often mean the same as 'resilience'.

A focus on resilience means putting greater emphasis on what communities can do for themselves and how to strengthen their capacities, rather than concentrating on their vulnerability to disaster or their needs in an emergency.

The terms 'resilience' and 'vulnerability' are opposite sides of the same coin, but both are relative terms. One has to ask what individuals, communities and systems are vulnerable or resilient to, and to what extent. (ADPC 2006 1)

Like vulnerability, resilience is complex and multi-faceted. Different features or layers of resilience are needed to deal with different kinds and severity of stress.

The 'disaster-resilient community' is an ideal. No community can ever be completely safe from natural and man-made hazards. It may be helpful to think of a disaster-resilient or disaster-resistant community as 'the safest possible community that we have the knowledge to design and build in a natural hazard context', minimising its vulnerability by maximising the application of DRR measures. DRR is therefore the collection of actions, or process, undertaken towards achieving resilience, which is why the tables often refer to particular DRR interventions.

Discussion

The impacts of disasters on the community are not necessarily determined by the scale of a disaster but are significantly influenced by the preparedness of the community. Community resilience is the capacity of groups to withstand, recover from, and respond positively to crisis or adversity. Community resilience is often described as having three properties: resistance, recovery and creativity.

Resistance - the degree of disruption that can be accommodated without the community undergoing long term change. A highly resilient community can withstand considerable disruption before undergoing long-term change.

Recovery - the community's ability to pull through or bounce back to its pre-disaster state. A highly resilient community returns to its pre-disaster state, or moves beyond that, quicker than a less resilient community.

Creativity - the community's ability to build on learnings of a crisis or disaster, to gain an improved level of functioning and increased levels of resilience. A highly resilient community will adapt to its new circumstances and learn from the disaster experience.

Resilience is a dynamic quality within a community. It can be developed and strengthened over time. A community can take action to enhance the capacity of its people, organisations, resources and ...