Building Resilient Communities: the Interplay between Climate Change and Social Capital

Chapter 29 - Social capital and disaster risk reduction in a periurban context

The ability of the public to remain psychologically resilient in the face of public health emergencies and disasters (such as the COVID-19 pandemic) is a key factor in the effectiveness of a national response to such events. Community resilience and social capital are often perceived as beneficial and ensuring that a community is socially and psychologically resilient may aid emergency response and recovery. This review presents a synthesis of literature which answers the following research questions: How are community resilience and social capital quantified in research?; What is the impact of community resilience on mental wellbeing?; What is the impact of infectious disease outbreaks, disasters and emergencies on community resilience and social capital?; and, What types of interventions enhance community resilience and social capital?A scoping review procedure was followed. Searches were run across Medline, PsycInfo, and EMBASE, with search terms covering both community resilience and social capital, public health emergencies, and mental health. 26 papers met the inclusion criteria.The majority of retained papers originated in the USA, used a survey methodology to collect data, and involved a natural disaster. There was no common method for measuring community resilience or social capital. The association between community resilience and social capital with mental health was regarded as positive in most cases. However, we found that community resilience, and social capital, were initially negatively impacted by public health emergencies and enhanced by social group activities.Several key recommendations are proposed based on the outcomes from the review, which include: the need for a standardised and validated approach to measuring both community resilience and social capital; that there should be enhanced effort to improve preparedness to public health emergencies in communities by gauging current levels of community resilience and social capital; that community resilience and social capital should be bolstered if areas are at risk of disasters or public health emergencies; the need to ensure that suitable short-term support is provided to communities with high resilience in the immediate aftermath of a public health emergency or disaster; the importance of conducting robust evaluation of community resilience initiatives deployed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

<p>Climate change is one of the biggest challenges that our planet is currently facing. From seasonal shifts in climate, with droughts, heatwaves, floods and storms<strong>,</strong> the impacts of climate change are global in scope and unprecedented in scale. Cities are heavily affected by the climate change consequences, with most of Europe’s population living in cities and urban areas and projections for 2050 predicting even larger shares (Nabielek, Hamers, & Evers, 2016). At the same time, cities generate up to 80% of a country’s GDP (United Nations Human Settlements Programme, 2011), but also consume 75% of the natural resources and account for 60-80% of greenhouse gas emissions. That is, urbanisation and cities’ economic growth are the biggest contributors to climate change.</p><p>Heritage, as a sensitive and valuable element of the living environment, is being affected by the increase in frequency and intensity of climate-related events, posing new challenges and needs to conservators and heritage managers. But improving the resilience of the historic urban districts, adapting to urbanisation, climate change, and other social, economic, and security trends is a challenging endeavour for cities and prone to potential conflicts of interest. It requires managing tasks like accommodating a growing – and in many cases aging – population, providing the required services, fostering social, environmental, and economic sustainability, and keeping the city liveable and attractive. But a liveable, sustainable, and, above all, resilient city is not just a product of organised and well-functioning services; other crucial elements are the places that make up the city, along with their communities. Sites of significant cultural and historical value and significance have an important role to play in fostering location-based identity and social cohesion. With the increased recognition of the threats that heritage faces from climate change, but also the role heritage can play in driving climate actions, all those connected to heritage face both a profound opportunity and a challenging responsibility. (ICOMOS Climate Change and Cultural Heritage Working Group, 2019)</p><p>As a response to these threats, a bridge is needed to fill the gap between urban development, resilience planning, and heritage management to boost collaboration among all involved stakeholders and make our cities more climate neutral and resilient. This should be based on a vision to stimulate and promote development for wider adoption of solutions for climate change mitigation and adaptation in historic urban districts. This process will promote constructive dialogue, development, and exchange of best practices for achieving better integration between resilient urban planning and heritage management. Moreover, it will aim to increase awareness of the role of historic areas – with their unique value and importance – play in stimulating the general public to actively contribute to coordinated efforts on climate resilience in accordance with protection and preservation of heritage both within local environments as well as nationally and internationally.</p><p>In the long-term, the goal is to make historic urban districts and their communities climate neutral and resilient, but also branch out to issues of contemporary urban districts to build and nurture more synergies.</p>

In the last 30 years, the concept of sustainable development has emerged as the guiding principle of international environmental law. The concept has found overwhelming support in the field of water governance as well. However, in the uncertain context of the Anthropocene and climate change, there have been arguments for the reinvigoration of the sustainable development agenda. In particular, arguments have called for the incorporation of notions of community resilience to promote ecological and social justice. This chapter focuses on the Plachimada groundwater struggle. It provides an analysis of the momentous struggle of the local population of Kerala, India to protect their inalienable right of access to groundwater. Their groundwater had suffered grave depletion through the technology employed by two corporate giants in Kerala. This chapter assumes that building community resilience is crucial for tackling environmental crisis in the uncertain Anthropocene. However, designing governance to build resilience is challenging and complex. Thus, appropriate structures will vary depending on local imperatives. Regardless of the envisaged structure for building resilience, public participation plays a crucial role. The first part of this chapter analyzes the momentous struggle of the local population in Plachimada to protect their right of access to groundwater. The Plachimada groundwater struggle highlights the significance of public participation in building community resilience. The second part of this chapter deals with the evolution of sustainable development within the international legal framework. This chapter attempts to locate the concept of community resilience within the international legal framework and assess its inter-linkage with sustainable development. The final part of this chapter assesses the lessons learned from Plachimada. Accordingly, the final part will propose a basic framework and mechanics, which can be employed by communities in order to build resilience and counter environmental hazards and events within the Anthropocene.

Participatory action research as a means of achieving ecological wisdom within climate change resiliency planning

Natural disasters have an impact on the socio-economics of society. Therefore, community resilience in facing these disasters is essential. Social capital is one factor that can help strengthen community resilience. This research will take an approach from social capital that consists of trust, social networks, and norms with collective action and community resilience. So, the research objective is to determine community resilience through collective action at the post-disaster recovery stage. Research was conducted in Ponggok Village to answer these research questions, which has abundant water resources as the village's superior potential. The Krejcie and Morgan tables determined the sample and showed the results in 248 respondents' families. The analysis used is Descriptive Statistics and Partial Least Square (PLS)-Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Through the analysis accomplished, the study shows that social capital significantly impacts 99% of the collective actions of society and government in dealing with disasters. Community resilience and social capital had an R2 of 0.316 (31.6%), a moderate explanation of the variance. However, this research still acquires confines despite the significant results. Therefore, the role of the community and government is crucial in achieving better resilience.

An experienced and resilient community has become a much-studied discourse after COVID-19. Strengthening the ability to self-organize post-crisis events encountered difficulties around changing local risk perspectives. In addition, they are increasing the capacity of individuals as a whole to form the expected community resilience. This study explains the importance of leveraging social capital to increase community capacity, affecting the ability to survive future crises. This study used a literature review to explore prior conceptions and conclusions about fostering community resilience and essential agreement of social capital. In this research, we seek a contribution through the following arguments a) Community resilience is the outcome of reciprocity social relationships; b) Social capital is an endeavor to cultivate relationships that encourage shared-value advantages between community members; c) Intellectual capital is the valuable sources in representing action-based of knowledge. The result shows it is necessary to build community resilience through a robust social approach, maintaining and reconstructing social capital to present community advantage and shared-value embedded in each community member.

This study investigates how different facets of social capital affect community resilience in The face of disasters. There has not been a thorough study that examines social capital across various types of frequently occurring disasters and across the different phases of a disaster, that is, pre-disaster, during disaster, and post-disaster. Previous research on social capital has been conducted in both developed and developing countries using various disaster cases. To synthesize previous research, identify knowledge gaps, and set the course for future research, this study used a literature review technique. This method is both methodical and rigorous. The current analysis found a rising trend in the amount of research on the use of social capital in disaster management, demonstrating a growing interest in the function of social capital in boosting community resilience in the face of disasters. The findings of this study showed that community resilience in disaster management is influenced by social capital components. The study found that the trust and network components of social capital—which include trust, beliefs, norms, rules, networks, and values—have the greatest effects on community resilience. Greater knowledge of the function of social capital in disaster management and the aspects of social capital that are most important for fostering community resilience are provided by these results, which have a substantial impact on future research and disaster management methods.

Climate change is a major global challenge affecting migration patterns, particularly in coastal communities vulnerable to sea-level rise, flooding, and extreme weather. Pakistan, with its extensive coastline and diverse environmental conditions, faces significant climate-induced migration issues, especially in Karachi, Thatta, Gwadar, Badin, and Muzaffargarh. This study aims to investigate the impact of climate change on migration patterns in these five selected regions of Pakistan. By analyzing climate variables and socio-economic factors, the research seeks to provide a localized understanding of how climate change drives population movements. A cross-sectional survey design was employed to gather data from 350 participants across these regions. Stratified random sampling ensured representation from each area, and data were collected using a structured questionnaire administered online. Statistical analyses included multiple linear regression, logistic regression, and structural equation modeling (SEM). This study found a strong positive relationship between climate change variables (sea level rise, temperature increases, and flooding) and migration patterns. Both direct impacts of climate change and indirect socio-economic factors influenced the likelihood of migration. The SEM analysis revealed that climate awareness partially mediates the relationship between climate change and migration. In conclusion, climate change significantly drives migration in Pakistan’s coastal communities, with both direct environmental impacts and socio-economic conditions playing crucial roles. Enhanced climate awareness and comprehensive adaptation strategies are essential. Policies should focus on climate resilience through infrastructure improvements, early warning systems, and socio-economic support programs. Strengthening education and economic opportunities is vital to build community resilience and effectively manage climate-induced migration.

A SNA-based methodology for measuring the community resilience from the perspective of social capitals: Take Nanjing, China as an example

The problem of poverty remains persistent in developing countries around the world. Poor households, particularly those headed by women, young people, and informal workers, particularly those who live in urban areas, are those most affected by vicious cycles of socioeconomic disasters such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This condition, therefore, will lead to urban poverty issues that decline individuals’ quality of life and livelihoods due to the growing population and expansion of urbanization areas. However, there are limited numbers of empirical studies on the impact of community resilience on poverty. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between social capital and community resilience among urban poor communities. 481 respondents from urban poor communities living in the poor communities housing called, the People’s Housing Project (PHP) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, were given a structured questionnaire by cluster sampling from December 2021 to July 2022. Data were analyzed using reliability analysis, correlation, and regression analysis. The findings showed that social capital is positively significant in community resilience building through having a good relationship with the community’s representative and having good involvement in the neighborhood. This study has proven that social capital in poverty adaptation among the poor should be given priority by the authorities in the poverty alleviation programs. The government must implement specific social capital policies and methods for upgrading the income of the urban poor with the aim of fostering resilience among urban poor communities in Kuala Lumpur in an effort to eradicate poverty.

5 - Resilience planning in antagonistic communities

To examine the impact of a 3year community-based violence prevention intervention on risk of violence and social capital in two poor urban communities in Honduras in 2011-2014. A quasi-experimental design pre and post implementation of the intervention was conducted based on data from two randomly selected samples using the same structured questionnaire in 2011 and in 2014. Community members had a 42% lower risk of violence in 2014 compared to 2011. There was a positive relation between participation in the intervention and structural social capital, and participants had more than twice the likelihood of engaging in citizenship activities compared to the general population. The intervention contributed to decreasing violence and increasing community resilience in two urban areas in Honduras. Citizenship activities and active community participation in the violence prevention agenda rather than social trust and cohesion characteristics was affected by the intervention. This research introduces important lessons learned to future researchers aiming to retrieve very sensitive data in a similarly violent setting, and provides strong research opportunities within areas, which to this date remain undiscovered.

Introduction Our vision is to empower people to be able to talk about death and dying which will result in people making choices about how and where they die and to empower communities to take control of their deaths. There is a similarity between community engagement programmes, and how our retail company can help the hospice reach that vision. We cannot assume that all communities are confident, and have the skills or language, to talk about death and dying. We have an opportunity to support this. Our shops are our beacons in the community. They allow us to interact with the community that is not immediately outside, or inside, our hospice door. If we are able to harness our presence on the high street, inform, educate and empower it will benefit us twofold; increased support and increased individual choice about death. Aim Embed ourselves within the communities that we work in Empower communities and build resilience through our retail company Encourage communities to harness this to talk openly about death and dying Build social capital, which supports the community and helps reach our organisational goal Approach Use our shop windows to promote hospice work Engage with local communities - building skill and confidence through volunteering programmes, expand the volunteer demographic to encourage intergenerational conversations. Gather ‘real’ stories from people in our communities, who are dealing with death/dying, who have been impacted by our shops e.g., conversations with retail teams Align our work with that of the hospice; philanthropic shopping that directly benefits members of their community Measuring success Apply concepts of asset based community development when reviewing our impact on resilience Use principles of social capital to guide/measure the activities of the retail company Develop retail company ‘outcomes’ in addition to monetary targets Gather community case studies to understand impact.

Given the projected climatic changes, building resilient agricultural systems is of vital significance in protecting vulnerable agrarian communities in sub-Saharan Africa. Under this scenario, the article attempts to identify a set of resilience-building adaptive strategies (intensification, diversification, alteration, migration, etc.) among farmers in Morogoro, Tanzania, and crafts a composite index of these strategies using a principal component analysis-based weighting scheme. The analysis also reveals the latent structure and internal correlations of actions intended to build resilience of the farming systems. Subsequently, the linkages of livelihood resources (natural, human, social and financial capitals) to the resilience-building strategies are examined. A multiple regression analysis is employed to link the composite index to variables representing the four capitals. The results bring quantitative evidence to the linkages and highlight the need of enhancing livelihood resources to enhance the ability to undertake adaptive strategies that denotes the ability to withstand stresses and shocks from climatic changes. Actions to improve human capital (awareness campaigns on climate change impacts as well as possible adaptive strategies), social capital (strengthening social networks, improving tenure security), financial capital (increasing credit availability) and natural capital (measures to enhance agricultural potential, support for adaptive action in areas with low agricultural potential) are needed in order to impart resilience to the farming systems against the changing climate.