Community flood resilience factors; A community's perspective

Efforts to reduce flood impacts have shifted towards more dynamic, resilience-based approaches, that encompass community make up and physical impacts. Despite this, there is a lack of understanding and the tools necessary to truly comprehend and measure flood resilience in detail at a community level. Previous community flood resilience models and the corresponding factors do not include the experiences and understanding (lay knowledge) of at-risk community members and hence what in reality makes a community resilient to flooding. A community flood resilience survey was designed and distributed to assess current understanding of community flood resilience, presenting a pre-determined list of 20 community flood resilience factors for consultation. Findings were split into three target groups, members of community flood groups (people who lobby for change in their community), those who have experienced flooding and those who have not experienced flooding. Opinions on community flood resilience differed between the groups, particularly its definition and the applicability of certain social factors (i.e. sense of community or community groups). However, there was consensus on the inclusion of physical factors, implying community flood resilience is still inherently considered physical in nature. Results from this study highlighted the importance of including community members in the analysis of community flood resilience and the design of subsequent community flood resilience frameworks. Ensuring lay knowledge is utilised and providing a community specific flood resilience framework with both established (i.e. land use) and novel (i.e. insurance rates) factors, designed not only for key stakeholders, but also community use.