Title: Strengthening community resilience through network building

Authors: Marvin Starominski-Uehara

Addresses: School of Humanities and Behavioural Sciences, Singapore University of Social Sciences, 599494, Singapore

Abstract: This paper argues that individuals mimic actions taken by close neighbours when deciding what they should do to reduce uncertainty to flood risks. Thus, policy makers promoting local resilience to high-impact low-probability hazards should not patronise residents living in risk areas but create opportunities for them to interact with community members who had taken protective actions. Protective actions in this study are flood insurance, house raising, and home improvements. The decision to take these protective actions is regressed against the following variables: i) the number of neighbours taking protective actions; ii) the quality of this relationship; iii) perception over neighbours' decision; and iv) general influence that neighbours have on individual decision making. Such model is for the first time presented in the literature of disaster management. It also provides empirical evidence to guide policy making based on data collected among residents living in flood-prone areas in Southeast Queensland, Australia.

Keywords: decision making; risk perception; social networks; network building; community resilience; heuristics; risk communication.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEM.2021.118770

International Journal of Emergency Management, 2021 Vol.17 No.1, pp.30 - 46

Accepted: 25 Oct 2020
Published online: 05 Nov 2021 *