Resilience as an Approach for the Development of Effective Recovery - Report Example

RUNNING HEAD: RESILIENCE AS AN APPROACH FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF EFFECTIVE RECOVERY AND RESPONSE STRATEGIES IN THE COMMUNITY INSTITUTION NAME Table of Contents Introduction..............................................................................................................................3 Resilience.......................................................................................................................3 Resilience as an approach for catastrophe readiness................................................3 Earthquake and tsunami key issues...........................................................................3 Community System Resilience................................................................................................4 Recovery strategies in the resilience system...............................................................5 Community responses and recovery to earthquake and tsunami issues.............................5 Resilience mechanism in the community...................................................................6 Why coastal communities more vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis.........................7 Factors that contribute to high susceptibility of coastal communities....................8 The importance of system resilience and the role of government........................................8 Community features to observe during emergency services and expectations placed....10 System approach verses individual decision-making..........................................................12 Modelling as a method of bettering Resilience....................................................................13 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................14 Reference.................................................................................................................................15 Introduction Resilience Community resilience is a process that entails associations of adaptive abilities within the community to maintain constructive functioning of activities regardless of the emergence of a disaster (Noriss et al 2007). Disasters normally cause injuries and prevalent property destructions. A comprehensive approach to management of these incidents caused by disasters involves four interconnected elements, which include preparedness, prevention, response and recovery. Resilience as an approach for catastrophe readiness The disaster mitigation Act of 2000 has developed emphasis on proactive ways to be implemented at the community level. The role of community resilience is to enhance local preparedness, guide the development of post-disaster socio-economic interventions (Reissman et al, 2005). To increase the resilience, the community is expected to attend its areas of social vulnerability, have high access to social capital, ensure that the institutional networks are key mobilizing agents of response and recovery and creates interventions that boost earthquakes social support. Earthquakes and Tsunamis Earthquakes and tsunamis are catastrophes that have brought numerous aftershock issues on humanitarian, economy and environment in the last decade (Humanitarian reaction to 2004 Indian Ocean seismic activity). Rigg et al (2012) pointed the two main occupations affected by earthquake and tsunami as fishing industry and tourism sector. Most of the people living along the regions prior affected by earthquakes and tsunami have been devastated with elevated loss in income that has apparently leaded to poverty. When it comes to environment, earthquakes and tsunamis have brought a massive destruction on ecosystem that would affect the entire region for many years. Components of the ecosystem such as forests, vegetation, animal and plant biodiversity and coastal wetlands among others have faced severe damage from these seismic activities (Report by UNEP, 2006). These damages have lead to poisoning of water supply to the community and as a result, the emergence of global diseases has affected the community. United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) is working closely with the local governments and the community in developing systems to address these damages caused by earthquakes and tsunamis. Community System Resilience According to Kirmayer (2009, 72), community resilience involves the capacity of the community or perhaps an affected group to have an ability to recover from, and respond confidently to a collective adversity brought by a disaster. Community resilience normally takes three forms: a) Resistance: Community in this case perhaps may resist change while adjusting or adapting to the ways to cancel out the effects brought by a disaster. Therefore, the community may undergo considerable misunderstanding before a congruent change agreed upon by every member. b) Recovery: With the severe and prolonged effects brought by the disaster, the community is malformed. In most cases, the community, which is more resilience normally, finds it easy to go back to pre-disaster situation than that which is less resilience. c) Creativity: In some occurrence, communities become transformed and thus leading to adoption of new ways and creation of new institutions with the objectives of moving forward the values. Therefore, in the society, a system may insure its own community by maintaining the components or may be eliminating them depending on the value that is expected form the system (Kirmayer, 2009). For instance, in an aboriginal community affected by earthquakes and tsunamis, resources are socially invested, it is defined by collective action and participation and the community possesses diverse links that comprehend all members of the community. Therefore, effective response to the effects caused by earthquakes and tsunamis in the community all depends on the level of links, relationship within the people in the community, believes and trust they have on the system (Kim et al, 2008, 520). Recovery strategies in the resilience system (Earthquakes and Tsunami wave effects) The report by American University (2009) pointed out universal response and recovery strategies that every other community resilience system is suppose to endorse in order to effectively address effects brought by disasters. Community is expected to; Place priority sequence upon the categorization of the duties agreed by community members and equip them with appropriate knowledge, Create an operation command centre to coordinate information about earthquakes and ensuring that execution of recovery strategies are not interrupted t any point, To procure equipments and supplies for the recovery efforts and ensure effective coordination within command centre. What are the community responses and recovery to these issues? According to FEMA (2003), earthquakes and tsunamis perhaps occur anytime so the community is encouraged to be ready at all times. This encourages everyone in the society to have the opportunity to exercise community emergency plans and become participants in emergency preparedness as well. Charitable and humanitarian response has offered great assistance to earthquake prone regions like Tohoku in Japan. Resilience mechanism in the community Disaster resilient bay area is a regional initiative earthquake response developed through a collaboration of stakeholders. It involves a mutual process of planning for disaster recovery to the community affected. This resilience initiative identifies particular recovery issues that obtain benefits from multi-authority collaboration and come up with effective strategies to improve this capacity. The system resiliency initiative has five distinct mechanisms. These include: Agenda recovery policy: -government policy paper, economic policy, infrastructure policy, housing policy and action plan. Local government recovery tools: These include a package of regulations related to issues brought by the occurrence of earthquake and tsunami. Resources for resilience: These includes development of regional recovery plan and building community sustainability after the occurrence of the disaster. Workshop presentations: System resilience initiative put in practice by incorporating essential service providers and choosing cost effective utilities. Monitoring and evaluation: This phase focuses on disaster recovery and emergency coordination plans. There is a great value when it comes to system resilience approach since it brings a heuristic for understanding socio-economical and technological process during analysis of multiple scales (Reframing resilience-Japan, 2013). It very important to note that system resilience as a way of addressing socio-economic issues that results from earthquake and tsunami is a viable foundation of sustainability in the region of disaster occurrence. The resilience system is driven be five main objectives. These objectives include: To develop an effective mitigation plan for the community, To develop e recovery plan that integrates actions for regional recovery planning, To train the community on the housing standards that would not lead to massive destructions when it comes to intense seismic actions, and To enhance policies that promotes soft-story buildings to reduce exposure to disaster hazards in the community. To promote the good use of land such that the community can develop a strong disaster response and recovery system in case of any emergency. The provision of GIS hazard map information to the system perhaps is very important as well when it comes to disaster recovery planning. The maps indicate areas of active faults, shaking, landslides tsunamis and liquefaction. Apparently, provision of such information would support the persuasion of the above objectives particularly on the community level. However, this may lack full appreciation from the community without the influence of the local government as the international bodies responsible for disaster recovery (American Red Cross, 2012). Why are coastal communities more vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis? Report by Adger et al (2005) shows that coastal communities are at high risk of being affected by earthquakes and tsunamis. This is because the degree of exposure to seismic activity is very high while the capacity to plan for response is still relatively slow. Climate change is evaluated to cause increase in sea level which in turns lead to imbalance of the epicentre. In addition, acidification in oceans causes raise in sea temperature (Pershing, 2006). A community vulnerability to potential hazards caused by earthquakes and tsunamis therefore is a result of an increase in coastal population. The reports currently show that more than 1.2 billion people reside within 100 kilometres from the shoreline and 100 metres above the sea level (Nicholls, 2003). Human activities are also agents of coastal degradation. The risk associated with vulnerable communities is calculated as follows: Risk = Vulnerability of the community in the coast region (exposure) × Hazard (severity). Factors that contribute to high susceptibility of coastal communities 1. High population density in risk-prone regions (living within 100 kilometres from the shorelines) 2. People living in earthquake-prone areas lacking awareness of vulnerability, 3. Elderly people living along the hazard-prone regions of the coast 4. Degraded environmental conditions in the coastal regions leaving the ecosystem unbalanced, 5. Critical buildings erected in earthquake-prone areas, and 6. Lack of sufficient capacity of the community in the region to respond to emergencies. The importance of system resilience to the earthquake and tsunami waves-prone communities Holling (1973) stated that system resilience establishes the determination of interaction within the system and evaluates the capability of the components in the system in absorbing change of states. This is defined from three characteristics of socio-ecological system resilience. These include the ability to determine the degree of shock in which the system absorbs, the ability of the system to be self-organized and the ability of the system to build capacity that would enable the community to learn and adapt to the components (Folke and Berkes, 2002). Resilience is a framework that integrates three major domains in the society; Community development, disaster management and coastal management (United Sates Agency for International Development, 2007). The diagram bellow describes the relationship among the three domains. Domains in the resilience framework The above framework chart comprehends all the components of community resilience, which include governance, society and economy, disaster recovery, emergency response, warning and evacuations, risk knowledge, structural design on the earthquake-prone regions and coastal resource planning and management. These components in the framework of disaster management are categorically described as follows; Governance ensures that there is good leadership in managing resources, provide legal frameworks and enables suitable conditions for resilience by encouraging community participation. Society and economy: This aspect in the framework ensures that the community is engaged to various environmentally procedures that are suitable for resistance to hazards caused by occurrence of earthquakes. Coastal resource planning and management ensures that the livelihoods of earthquake-prone communities are protected while the vulnerability to risks is reduced. The structural design reflects on the land use in the earthquake-prone regions. This provides complemented aspects to the community in terms of economy and environment thus reducing risks from happening of disaster. Risk knowledge part of the system ensures that the community members get the risk information about earthquakes and tsunami waves in time. Provision of information in time would help the members make decisions on how to response to emergencies. Early Warning Systems and evacuation ensures that the community is notified in time on at-risk population thus making members be alert on acting to emergencies. Emergency responses are mechanisms and networks set to enhance quick response to the occurrence of disasters caused by earthquakes and tsunami waves. Disaster recovery is the last component in the system that executes prior pans to emergencies. It also engages the community in recovery process while minimising the magnitude of disaster in environment, community and economy (United Sates Agency for International Development, 2007). Community features to observed during emergency services and expectations placed upon them Resilience is a system therefore when focusing on emergency services placed by the community to response to the disaster would perhaps incorporate all the elements in the system (Nicholls, 2003). During emergency services government play a very important role in provision of basic services such as good roads, ports and harbours and ensure there is potable water. The government also is responsible for provision of good critical facilities like hospitals and schools to ensure that those who are affected receive immediate attention. Government offices as well are expected to be operative so that any legislation regarding emergency services is executed with no compromise and delay (Eakin and Lynd, 2006, 367). Social institutions, commercial centres and livelihood resources protection perhaps should be very active. Social institutions for instance churches and temples would help the community become attached to moral values such as trust. On the other side, commercial centres would aid in providing enough finance to the community in order to support response and recovery. Sensitization of risk knowledge within the community at-risk is fundamental particularly during provision of emergency services. This describes the specific needs for the community living in tsunami zones, landslide zones and flooding zones (Reframing resilience-Japan, 2013). It is expected that during emergency services of reducing the impact of earthquake and tsunami waves, warning towers, flags and warning centres should be the key elements to notify the community about the occurrence of a disaster (earthquake) (Adger et al, 2005). Police stations, redevelopment areas and emergency supplies also make up an essential part of emergency services. The government also is expected to lead charitable and voluntary organizations like Red Cross to offer emergency supplies like medical care to the population affected by earthquakes and tsunami waves (USAID, 2007). A report by the Council of Australian Government (2011) points out that at the end of the day, the community with a disaster resilient system in place have the following characteristics; Members of the community understand the risks that are associated with earthquakes and tsunami waves particularly those in the local areas. They are acquainted with all information about hazards including all those whoa are vulnerable. The community work together and utilize the existing community networks and structures to put in place the local resources required to deal with emergencies associated with the occurrence of earthquakes and tsunamis. There is a strong partnership among community members, local government, state government and aid organizations which has enhanced effective policies. System approach verses individual decision-making Community-level interrogations are very essential when it comes to examining individual perception, attitude and standards related to resilience (Nicholls, 2003). Understanding these attributes, helps to the system recognize how individuals make decisions relating to the resilience elements considering the community as an important perspective. It is important to capture the representatives using cross-sectional approach in the community so that every group is represented. According to Sinclair (2004), individual level or resilience can be deliberately measured using personal resilience scale. The scale consist of four qualitative measurements items: 1. An individual can decide to take alternative ways to modify the difficult situations brought by earthquakes and tsunami waves regardless of what happens, 2. An individual is able to control his or her reactions especially when the magnitude of the disaster (earthquake) can lead him/her to difficult situation, 3. An individual can decide and learn to have a positive mind during response and recovery process from a disaster, and 4. An individual can set himself/herself to look for ways of recovering what he/she lost during that time of disaster occurrence. As far as individual level resilience scale focus much on personal recovery process, it also help the community since decisions made by individual are definitely absorbed by the entire members in the society. There is also a ‘sense of belonging’ that defines a special attachment of an individual to the resilience system. Sinclair (2004) states that, factors like spiritual fulfilment, personal safety and privacy enhances the affiliation between an individual and the system thus generalizing the elements across all members of the community. However, there is a thin line between using individual characteristics to define a community recovery and response process and using group level aspects in defining community recovery process. For instance, Thailand’s coastal community have the ability to enhance self-reliance through incorporation of effective individual earthquake recovery attributes to the different focus groups. This directly links to socio-economic component of the resilience system whereby the philosophy of modernization emphasized across all the members in the community so that the effects caused by earthquakes radically reduced and the time between the occurrence of the disaster (earthquakes) and recovery and response process prolonged (Adger et al, 2005). Modelling as a method of bettering Resilience Modelling is a conceptual framework that incorporates vulnerability, adaptive ability and resistance in the system resilience (Muir-Wood, 2012). As far as the community is concerned, resilience is an element in modelling that ensures that the community response to a required modification adaptively. This helps the community to focus on the new state of the suitable environment rather than going back to the pre-existing state. For instance, if long erected buildings are legally abandoned, therefore the community is ought to adapt to new state of living in moderately erected buildings. Vulnerability is a component in the community that would make members to be reluctant to effective change. Modelling radically informs the community on the importance of the new plans in responding to adverse effects of earthquakes and tsunami waves. The use of modelling strengthens community’s resources by overcoming the vulnerabilities and making the community respond to change effectively (Magurie and Cartwright, 2008, 11). Modelling enhances adaptive capacity for modifying members’ behaviours to cope with actual stressors brought by the occurrence of earthquakes. It also incorporates external processes, for instance political and physical environment that would definitely influence the community to response effectively in order to change the situations. The external environment also ensures that the domestic susceptibility to earthquakes and resources are transformed into adaptive actions. Generally, modelling is a context-dependent structure that varies from one community to another depending on the main objectives of the resilience system (Brooks, 2003). In conclusion, the key principle in the resilience theory is to enhance the ‘bounce back’ of the community after the occurrence of a disaster. The report has examined various efforts exhibited in the components of the resilient system. The basis of these efforts has been defined by various researches through their literature and findings. Asia communities particularly those residing along the coastal regions remain highly vulnerable to adverse effects brought by earthquakes and tsunami waves. Therefore, the report highlight the disaster resilience efforts on the community perspective that incorporate government actions and other international aid institutions like American Red Cross. Reference Adger, W. N., Hughes, C. Folke, S. & Rockstrom, J. (2005). Social-ecological resilience to coastal disasters. Science. Vol.309, no. 5737, pp. 1030-1041. Brooks, N. (2003). Vulnerability, risk and adjustment. Conceptual framework. University of East Angalia. No. 38. Andrew, B. (31 December 2004). "Tsunami's Consequences: On Asia's Coasts, Progress Demolish Natural Defenses". The Wall Street Journal. p. A5. Council of Australian Government (2001). National strategy for disaster resilience. Structuring the resilience of our country to disasters, www.ag.gov.au/cca. Eakin, H & Lynd, L. A. (2006). Assessing the vulnerability of social ecological systems. Annual review of ecological (environmental) resources, vol. 31, pp. 363-378. Falt, Eric. "Environmental Issues Emerging from Wreckage of Asian Tsunami." United Nations Environment Programme 2006. FEMA (2003). Earthquakes and Tsunamis: Time to get ready is now. http://www.fema.gov/news-release/2013/03/18/earthquakes-and-tsunamis-time-get-ready-now Folke, C. & Berkes, F. (2002). Back to future. Ecosystem dynamics and local knowledge. Washington: Island press. Folke, C. (2006). Resilience: the emergence of a perspective for socio-ecological systems analysis. Global environmental change, vol. 16, pp. 252-265. Kim, H. S., Sherman, D. K. & Taylor, S. (2008). Culture and social support. American psychologist, vol. 63 (6), pp. 519-525. Magurie, B. & Cartwright, S. (2008). Accessing community’s capacity to manage change. A resilience approach to social assessment. Australia: Bureau of Rural Science. Muir-Wood, R. (2012). Catastrophe modelling methodology use to design disaster resilience objectives and indicators in post millennium development goals framework. Nicholls, R. J. (2003). Global analysis of global settlement in coastal zones. Journal of coastal research, vol. 9, Iss. 3, pp. 580-600. Pershing, J. (2006). Climate science 2005: major discoveries. www.wri.org/climate/pubs_description.cfm?pid=4175 Reframing Resilience | Japan. (n.d.). Japan | Resilience. Retrieved May 12, 2013, from http://japan.resiliencesystem.org/reframing-resilience-0 Rigg, Johnathan; Lisa Lawt, May Tan-Mullins and Carl Grundy-Warr (December 2005). "The Indian Ocean Tsunami: Socio-Economic Impacts in Thailand.". The Geographic Journal 171 (4): 374–379. Retrieved 4 February 2012. Sinclair, V. G. (2004). The development and psychometric evaluation of the brief resilience coping scale. Assessment, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 93-100. Working in Crises and Conflict | U.S. Agency for International Development. (2007). U.S. Agency for International Development. Retrieved May 14, 2013, from http://www.usaid.gov/what-we-do/working-crises-and-conflict Read More

Community resilience normally takes three forms: a) Resistance: Community in this case perhaps may resist change while adjusting or adapting to the ways to cancel out the effects brought by a disaster. Therefore, the community may undergo considerable misunderstanding before a congruent change agreed upon by every member. b) Recovery: With the severe and prolonged effects brought by the disaster, the community is malformed. In most cases, the community, which is more resilience normally, finds it easy to go back to pre-disaster situation than that which is less resilience. c) Creativity: In some occurrence, communities become transformed and thus leading to adoption of new ways and creation of new institutions with the objectives of moving forward the values.

Therefore, in the society, a system may insure its own community by maintaining the components or may be eliminating them depending on the value that is expected form the system (Kirmayer, 2009). For instance, in an aboriginal community affected by earthquakes and tsunamis, resources are socially invested, it is defined by collective action and participation and the community possesses diverse links that comprehend all members of the community. Therefore, effective response to the effects caused by earthquakes and tsunamis in the community all depends on the level of links, relationship within the people in the community, believes and trust they have on the system (Kim et al, 2008, 520).

Recovery strategies in the resilience system (Earthquakes and Tsunami wave effects) The report by American University (2009) pointed out universal response and recovery strategies that every other community resilience system is suppose to endorse in order to effectively address effects brought by disasters. Community is expected to; Place priority sequence upon the categorization of the duties agreed by community members and equip them with appropriate knowledge, Create an operation command centre to coordinate information about earthquakes and ensuring that execution of recovery strategies are not interrupted t any point, To procure equipments and supplies for the recovery efforts and ensure effective coordination within command centre.

What are the community responses and recovery to these issues? According to FEMA (2003), earthquakes and tsunamis perhaps occur anytime so the community is encouraged to be ready at all times. This encourages everyone in the society to have the opportunity to exercise community emergency plans and become participants in emergency preparedness as well. Charitable and humanitarian response has offered great assistance to earthquake prone regions like Tohoku in Japan. Resilience mechanism in the community Disaster resilient bay area is a regional initiative earthquake response developed through a collaboration of stakeholders.

It involves a mutual process of planning for disaster recovery to the community affected. This resilience initiative identifies particular recovery issues that obtain benefits from multi-authority collaboration and come up with effective strategies to improve this capacity. The system resiliency initiative has five distinct mechanisms. These include: Agenda recovery policy: -government policy paper, economic policy, infrastructure policy, housing policy and action plan. Local government recovery tools: These include a package of regulations related to issues brought by the occurrence of earthquake and tsunami.

Resources for resilience: These includes development of regional recovery plan and building community sustainability after the occurrence of the disaster. Workshop presentations: System resilience initiative put in practice by incorporating essential service providers and choosing cost effective utilities. Monitoring and evaluation: This phase focuses on disaster recovery and emergency coordination plans. There is a great value when it comes to system resilience approach since it brings a heuristic for understanding socio-economical and technological process during analysis of multiple scales (Reframing resilience-Japan, 2013).

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