Assessment and Comparison of Community Resilience to Floods and Tsunamis in Padang, Indonesia

Abstract

Community disaster resilience is very important for the City of Padang, where floods occur almost every year. The city is also now at the peak of the Sunda Megathrust cycle, which could cause a tsunami in the near future. This study aims to assess and compare community resilience to different types of natural disasters that cause either shocks or stresses. Data were collected through the distribution of questionnaires to 150 respondents and field observations. The analysis employed a quantitative approach to assess community disaster resilience based on indices of social, community capacity, economic, and infrastructure dimensions. The highest values for the social dimension were found in both floods and tsunamis, scoring equally at 0.73, indicating high resilience. In contrast, the lowest values for the economic dimension were observed in floods (0.35) and tsunamis (0.32), indicating low resilience. A significant difference was noted in the community capacity dimension, with a resilience value of 0.50 for floods and 0.34 for tsunamis, indicating moderate and low resilience, respectively. The results of this analysis suggest that the community is more prepared to face floods, as evidenced by higher values in the community capacity and economic dimensions compared to tsunamis. Therefore, interventions to increase community resilience are needed. This study recommends the need for an integrative and comprehensive approach, beyond existing efforts, in increasing community resilience related to floods and tsunamis.