The role of community leadership in disaster recovery projects: Tsunami lessons from Japan

Human capital as a turnkey resource in resilience to cyclones and storm surges: Empirical evidence from coastal Bangladesh

What are the best methods to build cyclone and storm resilience in a developing country? We examine the multiple resources that contribute to storm resilience in the highly vulnerable ecological context of coastal Bangladesh, finding that human capital is a critical turnkey resource that enables and facilitates the use of other resources in household responses to floods, storm surges and other cyclone damage. Drawing on a household survey of nine coastal villages in different ecological zones of coastal Bangladesh, we use principal component analysis (PCA) and multiple regression to identify four components of storm resilience and a human capital index that, along with other household resources, predicts resilience to storms and cyclones. We then use this human capital index as a policy tool to map the proportion of highly resilient households in these nine villages and identify additional methods for building a stronger understanding of storm resilience.

Leadership emotion: how leaders influence employee wellbeing and performance in the disaster and emergency management context

Leaders play a unique role in the disaster management context as they address the safety needs of communities and manage the complexities of the response and recovery task. Leaders who effectively navigate the challenges of leading in this unique context bring hope and positivity, uniting the efforts of community and government to address the needs of those seeking safety and support. Positive affect is one aspect of effective leadership that receives considerable attention in the academic literature but has, as yet, received little attention in the disaster and emergency management area. This paper draws on contemporary literature on the understanding of positive affect in leadership, bringing together the limited current literature in the area of leader affect in the emergency management context and identifying a significant gap. It calls for a research focus on positive affect in the unique context of disaster and emergency management and consideration of the implications for wellbeing and performance.

Seismic Resilience of Rural Water Supply Systems; Factor Analysis of Cases Set in Sichuan Province, China

The seismic resilience of water supply systems can be impacted by numerous factors, but what these factors are in the rural context of China is unknown. In this study, 41 potential influencing factors of seismic-resilience for rural water supply system (RWSS) were obtained through a literature review and semi-structured expert interview, comprising 26 general influencing factors (GFs) and 15 water supply safety influencing factors (SFs). This study verified and ranked these factors through a questionnaire survey delivered to RWSS stakeholders in Sichuan Province, China. Based on 123 valid, returned questionnaires, these factors are divided into 9 factor groups through factor analysis performed on GFs and SFs, respectively, of which “economic resilience” and “organizational resilience in disaster prevention stage” are shown to be the most important factor groups. Additionally, it found that the experience of earthquake events significantly affects the perceptions of stakeholders on the importance of certain factors. Specifically, stakeholders who have experienced an earthquake prioritize the post-earthquake resilience of the system, while those who have not experienced an earthquake prioritize the absorption capacity of the system in the disaster prevention stage. Thus, it is not appropriate to use fixed weights to evaluate the seismic resilience of RWSSs. Significantly, this outcome differs from existing findings on the resilience of Urban Water Supply Systems (UWSSs), where “technical resilience” is the key dimension. These findings can help decision-makers fully understand the factors affecting the seismic resilience of RWSSs in China, and in doing so, augment the strengthening of rural water supply.

Remedying Airbnb COVID-19 disruption through tourism clusters and community resilience

Peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation markets have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, little attention is paid to how to remedy the disruption in terms of P2P accommodation performance. This study empirically investigates the spatially heterogeneous COVID-19 disruptions in the Airbnb business and offers place-based remedying strategies through local resources, including tourism clusters and community resilience. Using real data on Airbnb operating performance and local resources in Florida, we employ spatial econometric models and visualization techniques to estimate the pandemic-disrupted Airbnb performance model. The results show that leisure and hospitality clusters and three resilience resources-social, community capital, and environmental-had spatially heterogeneous effects on Airbnb revenue and booking performance across Floridian counties during the pandemic. Furthermore, community resilience moderated the effect of tourism clusters on Airbnb performance across individual and subclustered counties. These findings enable P2P accommodation hosts and policymakers to adopt destination-specific remedying strategies to cope with the pandemic.

Can post-disaster tourism development improve destination livelihoods? A case study of Aceh, Indonesia

Destinations are vulnerable to natural disasters, which can result in damage to infrastructure and built facilities, negative destination images, and a difficult time of recovery. Recently, a growing number of destinations have incorporated tourism development in their disaster relief efforts and used post-disaster tourism as a strategy to enhance local livelihoods and build community resilience. Guided by the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework for Tourism (SLFT), this study analyzed the case of Aceh, Indonesia, a destination that had been struck by a severe natural disaster and developed tsunami tourism as a strategy to recover. The data were collected through focus group interviews among local stakeholders. Based on the SLFT, this study employed a deductive approach to analyze the data and identified six themes. The findings not only validated the applicability of the SLFT to a post-disaster tourism development context, but also revealed how tourism could contribute to various community assets and a resilient destination in the aftermath of a crisis. The study also underscored the importance of local culture and religion during the recovery process. Based on the findings, further discussions are provided regarding the dynamics involving sustainable development, post-disaster tourism, and resilient destinations.

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Post-disaster tourism is used to enhance local livelihoods and community resilience.

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Investigates the development of tsunami tourism in Aceh, Indonesia.

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Data were collected through six focus group interviews among local stakeholders.

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Validates the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework for Tourism.

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Underscores the importance of local culture and religion during Aceh's recovery.

Community leaders as intermediaries: How everyday practices create and sustain leadership in five informal settlements in Cape Town

Community leaders are expected to navigate different social and institutional contexts, but they must do so without the direction, authority or legitimacy available to leaders within formal organisations. In this article, we draw on qualitative data from a participation initiative to explore how community leaders get involved in everyday maintenance of public services in informal settlements in Cape Town, in order to understand how they fulfil this intermediary role. Applying the lens of leadership-as-practice, we identify four practices that connect the communities and city, and which facilitate access to public services. We unpack how these practices emerge in and are shaped by the service maintenance system and material conditions of informality. We argue that community leaders fulfil their intermediary role through everyday improvisations to find ‘what works’, and in the process, they also create and sustain relations of dependence and interdependence that reinforce those very roles.