An assessment of community disaster resilience for small, high-risk communities on the Sunshine Coast, Qld

An assessment of community disaster resilience for small, high-risk communities on the Sunshine Coast, Qld

Building and enhancing disaster resilience is a key goal for communities as the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events continues to escalate. An assessment of a community's level of resilience and the identification of associated strengths and weaknesses is, therefore, valuable information when planning, co-ordinating and directing strategies and resources. Despite the challenges in applying the assessment method referred to as the Community Disaster Resilience Scorecard, the process of undertaking the assessment has drawn out some key areas of focus for Sunshine Coast communities. This paper presents the results of the application of the Scorecard and contextualises these findings with the qualitative narrative that was captured at the time of the assessments. In this way, it is proposed that the predominant benefit of applying the Scorecard for these communities has centred on its participatory methodology. In particular, application of the Scorecard was instrumental in guiding the communities through a series of useful discussions about their level of risk, vulnerabilities, resources and capacities.