Community resilience to the San Ramón Fault: An exploratory study from social leaders

Abstract

In the field of Disaster Risk Management (DRM), the notion of community resilience has motivated a series of studies focused on conceptualizing, dimensioning and defining the pillars of this construct. This study seeks to describe the dimensions of community resilience in the face of the threat of an active geological fault in the foothills of the Metropolitan Region of Chile. A questionnaire was applied to 43 social leaders of Peñalolen, subsequently, a statistical analysis of the 27 closed items was held and a quantitative thematic analysis of the three opened items. The results indicate five key dimensions of community resilience: governance; risk assessment; cultural knowledge and education; risk management and vulnerability reduction and organizational strategies for disaster preparedness and response. Finally, the importance of these dimensions of community resilience in contexts of chronic and overlapping vulnerabilities is discussed, while highlighting the need to develop better institutional measures for prevention, preparedness and response to disasters.