Rural Resilience Index Bowles, R., Amaratunga, C., Anderson, G., Cox, R., Pearce, L., & Ursuliak, D. Rural Disaster Resilience Index The Rural Disaster Resilience Project Disaster Resilience - the ability to survive and thrive in the face of uncertainty - is the foundation of rural life. It is also the cornerstone of effective emergency management across all phases of a disaster from preparedness through response and recovery. There is much to learn about resilience from remote, rural, and coastal communities; their resilience is one of Canada’s biggest assets. At the same time, the emergency planning capacity of RRC communities is often constrained by a lack of resources and access to user-friendly risk mitigation planning tools and processes. The Justice Institute of British Columbia (JIBC) launched the Rural Disaster Resilience Project (RDRP) in 2008. This multi-year research project strengthens the community disaster management and health system capabilities of rural, remote, and coastal communities (RRC) through community-based action research that informs and influences policy and practice. Draft Framework Community-based Research Field Sites Case Studies RDRP Planning Framework The RRI allows remote, rural, and coastal communities to assess their community’s disaster resilience in a simple, easy-to-use, yet robust way. The RRI is a flexible, scalable process; communities can work with either the full instrument or a subset of community disaster resilience dimensions and indicators that fit with the resources, priorities, values and capabilities of their particular community and planning team. Accessing the RRI Online: The Disaster Resilience Planning Network: DRRPlan.net 2 RRI Categories: The Disaster Resilience Planning Network is a Virtual Community of Practice (VCoP) that supports remote, rural, and coastal communities engaged in disaster resilience planning. The RRI assesses communities on two categories of community resilience: • • Community Resources Disaster Management Community Resources include community characteristics associated with the quality and strength of residents' connections to each other, and the self-reliance, self-determination and selfsufficiency of the community. It also includes other characteristics of community functioning such as the presence of effective leadership, inclusive decision-making processes, and open, clear, and transparent communication channels also influence resilience. Disaster Management focuses attention on factors associated with disaster preparedness and disaster management. This includes things such as awareness of risks and threats and what individual households, businesses and the community as a whole have put in place to reduce those threats and prepare for them should they occur. RRI Resilience Categories and Dimensions Community Resources Our community if close knit and involved Our community is self-sufficient and resourceful Our community is diverse in skills, knowledge and culture Our community has a strong health and social support system Our community has strong local leadership and governance Our community is stable and sustainable Our community has adequate services and utilities Regional governance and services support our community Our community is disaster aware The site provides communities with a link to the RDRP Planning Framework, access to a range of disaster resilience planning resources, and collaborative work spaces to support their planning efforts. Disaster Management Our community is prepared for disaster Our community structures are protected Our livestock, animals and farms are protected Our community has a comprehensive disaster plan Our community is involved in ongoing disaster planning Our community has adequate first response capacity Our community has adequate emergency medical response capacity Go to: www.drrplan.net Access the Online RDRP Planning Framework 16 Dimensions Conceptual Models Complete Community Risk and Hazard Resilience Assessments Both sections of the RRI contain a number of dimensions of community resilience. These dimensions are presented as statements indicative of resilience characteristics within a community. Interviews and Focus Groups To find the RRI, go to: www.DRRPlan.net Access the RDRP Planning Framework The RRI is available from the “Tools and Resources” link or in Step 2 as you work through the RDRP Planning framework HRA Characteristics Proof of Concept Literature Review •Virtual Community of Practice •Online Planning Framework The project is funded through the Centre for Security Science, in partnership with the Public Health Agency of Canada. Participating partners include Natural Resources Canada, Public Safety Canada, Royal Roads University, and Pearces2 Consulting. Develop Strategies and Action Plan Each dimension is assessed by considering a final level of characteristics – statements associated with specific features of a community or its resilience. Communities can rank their community as “high” or “low” resilience in each dimension, identify those dimensions that are particularly important to their community, and flag areas that require further exploration or discussion. Paper-based version Development of the RRI Using the RRI The project designed, developed, and implemented: • The Disaster Resilience Planning Network – an online Virtual Community of Practice to support community disaster resilience planning • The Rural Disaster Resilience Planning Framework – a disaster resilience planning process designed for remote, rural, and coastal communities • Three tools for community resilience assessment and planning: the Rural Resilience Index (RRI), Hazard Resilience Assessment (HRA), and Hazard Resilience Index (HRI) The development of the RRI combines the insights of researchers and experts in disaster resilience with those of individuals living in rural environments. The RRI incorporates the need for a contextual, flexible approach to emergency management, recognizing the value of engaging stakeholders as active participants in the development of plans, planning tools, and processes rather than as passive recipients. Over four years, the project involved an extensive literature review and synthesis, interviews and case study reviews with Canadian remote, rural, and coastal communities, development of the draft framework with two pilot sites, and communitybased research with three field sites to validate and refine the process and tools. The development of the RRI blends a top-down and bottom-up approach that integrates the best of academic research on community disaster resilience and the insights and expertise of those living and working in RRC communities. The development process incorporates ongoing feedback from researchers and community residents in the project’s five RRC field site communities. The RDRP Planning Framework is a comprehensive risk and resilience management framework that supports the ability of RRC communities to engage in disaster preparedness and resilience enhancement planning. The framework provides a flexible, user-friendly guided resilience enhancement planning process that includes participatory, qualitative disaster risk and resilience assessment tools. The framework consists of 4 steps and 16 activities and is supported through an extensive pool of related resources. The HRA and HRI tools provide communities with a comprehensive tool for determining a community’s resilience in the face of locally identified hazard-risk priorities. The Rural Resilience Index (RRI) focuses on the strengths and challenges facing a community in terms of disaster resilience. Together, these assessments identify resilience enhancement priorities that will guide the development of the community disaster resilience plan. HRI Web version Paper-based version The Rural Resilience Index (RRI) helps communities assess their disaster resilience in order to provide information on areas of resilience that can be enhanced. The RRI is most useful when it includes broad participation from stakeholders and residents in a community. A significant benefit of the process of assessing resilience arises from the discussions it generates and the increased awareness of disaster preparedness, disaster risk reduction, and disaster resilience this can create in the community. Simply participating in the process increases a community’s resilience! Communities complete the RRI using either web- based or paper-based forms. Each format has the same information and process. The first step in our top down approach was to undertake an extensive review of the community disaster resilience literature and assessment frameworks. Eighteen critical frameworks provided a cross-section of the most well-developed and/or most-utilized disaster resilience assessment tools developed by leading national and international agencies and researchers. The cross-cutting concepts and indicators identified through this process were thematically categorized to generate seven core domains of community disaster resilience using this capital-based approach: 1) human capital, 2) built capital, 3) social capital, 4) economic capital, 5) natural capital, 6) governance, and 7) disaster preparedness. Communities start by choosing one of the 16 RRI dimensions. Each dimension has a list of characteristics related to the resilience dimension. For example, one characteristic of the dimension “Our community is close knit and involved” is “Residents work together to accomplish shared goals.” The community reviews the characteristics and, through a process of gathering necessary information, discussion, and consensus building, rates their community as having either “high” or “low” resilience. Communities can also flag specific dimensions or characteristics as “important” for future consideration. Complimenting the analysis of the research on community disaster resilience frameworks, the researchers conducted a series of semi-structured interviews in eight RRC communities. Thematic analysis focused on how community disaster resilience was understood or defined by citizens, community disaster resilience indicators, and patterns of relationships between and amongst those indicators. Communities next use the RRI’s customized reporting features to generate a comprehensive assessment of both areas of strength (“high” resilience) and those in need of improvement (“low” resilience). Communities complete the RRI process by identifying specific areas (dimensions) in which they would like to focus their resiliency efforts. The RRI provides a comprehensive series of suggested strategies for increasing resilience for each resilience dimension. The result is a comprehensive action plan for addressing resilience building within the community. The resulting draft Rural Resilience Index was piloted as part of the overall RDRP Planning Framework in three RRC communities across Canada. Subsequent analysis of these communities’ experience resulted in the current version of the RRI. Most recently, the RRI has been adapted for online delivery through the DRRPlan.net site. Customized Report Form RRI Report with Suggested Strategies