Investigating the relationship between perceptions of social responsibility and community resilience to flooding: a definition, context and methodology

Despite well-documented evidence of the potential physical impacts of flooding, research has so far neglected to fully investigate the manner by which different aspects of decision making at community level could influence resilience to flooding. This research attempts to investigate this gap in knowledge by exploring ways in which a better understanding of the expectations associated with social responsibility could potentially increase community resilience. There is particular emphasis upon the interrelationships between social responsibility and the decision making process. This paper sets the context for this investigation and proposes a methodology that attempts to not only understand how key community groups perceive their own levels of social responsibility to the community, but also what level of social responsibility they believe the other groups should have. It is argued that community groups may not even be aware that they are failing to meet their expected level of social responsibility. Therefore, the gaps discovered by this methodology between a group’s own perception and how they are perceived by others would highlight barriers to community resilience. An argument for research to better understand resilience at the level of the community by exploring the individual and interconnected decision making of householders, small businesses and policy makers, is further elaborated. The arguments presented here will be of interest to community leaders and provide considerations for built environment professionals embarking on the development of resilience measures, with considerations suggested for future research within this field.