What makes a community resilient to a flood disaster?

Abstract

Disaster resilience is a concept that emphasises the capacity of the affected system to respond to unexpected adversity. As a new perspective on dealing with disasters, it draws attention to the complex interaction between humans and the environment. The ‘community’ is considered a significant agent in discussions of disaster resilience. This thesis aims to determine what community factors enable communities to build disaster resilience. In order to handle this question, it is necessary to discuss more clearly who should be resilient more fundamentally. This study selected two areas in the Korean capital city of Seoul that were severely damaged by torrential rains in July 2011: Jeonwon village and Raemian Arthill apartment complex. The experience of the disasters in the two areas was analysed in various ways using interviews and document analysis methods. The main finding of this study was that local communities for residents were not well recognised. People become residents of an area simply by living there, but that does not mean being part of the ‘community’. In addition, various social and environmental factors in the two areas may lead to a decrease in interaction between residents, which was another cause of local communities not being recognised by residents. I also discuss the possibility of local governments, sometimes used interchangeably as local communities, as disaster resilience agents. In the absence of a suitable local community, the expected factors that enable the community to improve resilience were not well embodied. Communities cannot accumulate successful experiences, which hinders learning and building adaptive capacity, militating against building disaster resilience. Most importantly, local communities, which have not been clearly identified, can cloud many issues in the disaster resilience discussion. Disaster resilience can be discussed very differently depending on what communities (with presumed resources and capabilities) are viewed as; for example, neighbourhoods, villages, apartment complexes or local governments. Above all, it seems necessary to ask questions about what the community – which is the key subject of disaster resilience – is.