Use of types of resilience as indicators in this study

The overall aim of this study is to explore the vulnerability and resilience in community groups in the aftermath of flood events. Due to its complexity and multi-faceted dimension, community resilience is difficult to measure and quantify, but it can be evaluated in terms of the impact of hazards on its various components. Those identified

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in the literature are social, economic, infrastructural/environmental, and psychological, and community competence (Cutter et al., 2008).

In this study, these types of resilience (Section 2.7) are used as indicators to evaluate and assess the vulnerability and resilience of three different communities exposed to flood hazards in three localities in Mauritius. Different variables for each indicator were used to collect relevant information at each level and provide baseline information for the evaluation of community resilience. As an indication, a few of the main variables that relate to each of the indicators (Table 2.4) is given below:

(i) social resilience (demographic variables e.g. age, education level of the respondent)

(ii) economic resilience (occupation, property and house ownership)

(iii) infrastructural/infrastructural/environmental resilience (types of housing, access to services)

(iv) institutional resilience (engagement with local and government institutions, support

(v) psychological resilience (worries and post disaster trauma of living with floods

(vi) community competence (community cohesion and networking)

The results from the analysis of the data are integrated and evaluated alongside the components of community resilience and assessed in terms of vulnerability and in conjunction with types of resilience in Chapter 8.

2.11.1 Developing a model of flood risk reduction for Mauritius

The current practice of DRR in respect to flood disasters is technically based on warning response systems and on providing structural measures of building drainage.

However, these measures are not adequate as they do not address the root causes of vulnerability. This means that there should be a shift in approach from studying hazards with the purpose of providing technical solutions for hazard mitigation towards an approach that identifies and assesses the various factors (economic, political,

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environmental, and others) that determine the vulnerability of the people affected.

Developing indicators and assessing societies’ vulnerability to flooding are therefore important elements in effective risk reduction management. The concept of community resilience developed by Cutter et al. (2008) seems a promising tool for use in vulnerability reduction and resilience enhancement. This model, along with the approaches adopted in the other models described above, could provide deeper insights into the development of a new model of flood risk reduction management as a way to build community resilience in the context of Mauritius.

2.12 Summary

This chapter reviewed the concepts related to hazards and the paradigm shift from discrete physical to human use-environment interaction events. The various concepts of risks were examined and their application to disaster risk management was critically examined. The relations between the concepts of vulnerability and resilience were discussed with emphasis on their links to the differential exposure of community groups and to EJ.

Community resilience was found to be influenced by different types of resilience as indicators emanating from social, economic, infrastructural/environmental, institutional, and psychological and community competence interrelationships. These indicators have been found to be useful in assessing community resilience in an integrated manner and in the formulation of a framework of the concept of community resilience.

Some case studies of community resilience highlighted the different approaches, namely, quantitative and qualitative, and the participatory activities that could guide the methodology of this thesis. The next chapter explores the different hazards in Mauritius, with emphasis on the social aspects of vulnerability and resilience to flood hazards, which is the overall theme of this study.

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Chapter 3 Hazards in Mauritius

3.1 Introduction

This chapter analyses hazards in Mauritius, the vulnerability of communities to flood events, and the system in place to mitigate their impacts. The analysis is based mainly on government reports, limited published literature, and media reports. To this end, some aspects of the geography of Mauritius are considered: its location is introduced and discussed in Section 3.2, its physical characteristics in Section 3.3, its climate in Section 3.4, the socio-economic profile and cultural characteristics of the population in Section 3.5, and land use patterns in Section 3.6. An analysis of the types of hazards that cause more frequent flooding across the island, which are mainly cyclones and torrential rain, are given in Section 3.7. Data collected from media reports on flood episodes from 2003 to 2011 are analysed and graphically displayed in Section 3.8.

Section 3.9 discusses the paradigm shift in the description of flooding from a single natural event to that of a human use-environment interaction system in the Mauritian context. The exposure of the communities to the risk of recurrent floods is reviewed in Section 3.10, while in in Section 3.11, the ‘top-down’ approach for mitigating disaster risk, including warning systems and public sensitization, is scrutinized. In addition, the adequacy of the system in place to mitigate the impacts of flooding is discussed.

Vulnerability is addressed in conjunction with resilience in Section 3.12, while the reason for choosing the three localities for the case studies is discussed in Section 3.13.

Finally, a summary of Chapter 3 is given in Section 3.14.