Community Resilience: Integrating Natural Hazard Management and Community Development

Paton D¹*

1. School of Psychology, University of Tasmania, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia

Many communities are susceptible to natural hazard consequences. While the consequences themselves cannot be prevented, their implications for community sustainability are influenced by the preparedness of the community and its capacity to mitigate and/or adapt to disruptive consequences (its resilience). The shift in emergency management from a response-based to a risk management focus has stimulated interest in the identification of factors that predict a capacity for adaptation under these circumstances.

Drawing upon a study of the response to salinity in Victoria, studies of adaptation to volcanic hazard consequences in New Zealand and in Hawaii, and studies of earthquake mitigation this paper will discuss how individual (e.g. self-efficacy, sense of community), community (e.g. community competence, social justice) and societal/environmental (e.g. community empowerment, access to natural environment) can be intergrade to constitute a model of adaptive capacity based on community engagement. The implications of these findings for risk communication, hazard mitigation, community development and community sustainability will also be discussed.

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