Benchmarking Community Disaster Resilience in Nepal.

Area of Science:

• Disaster Risk Reduction
• Community Resilience Studies
• Geospatial Analysis

Background:

• Disaster resilience is crucial for effective disaster risk reduction programs.
• Understanding community response and recovery capacity is essential for absorbing shocks and efficient recovery.
• Nepal, a hazard-prone nation with recent earthquake experience, offers a unique context for studying developing world disaster resilience.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantify community disaster resilience across Nepal at the village level.
• To identify spatial patterns of disaster resilience within the country.
• To provide empirical evidence for informed resource allocation in disaster risk reduction.

Main Methods:

• Utilized census data and the Disaster Resilience of Place (DROP) model with 22 resilience indicators.
• Assessed community resilience for 3971 village development communities (VDCs) and municipalities.
• Employed principal component analysis and cluster analysis to quantify and map resilience.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated significant variations in community disaster resilience across Nepal.
• Identified Kathmandu, and the western and far western Hill regions as relatively resilient.
• Revealed that the Tarai region, despite its high population, exhibits lower resilience.

Conclusions:

• The study provides the first national-level quantification of community disaster resilience in Nepal.
• Findings highlight the need for targeted interventions in less resilient areas, particularly the Tarai region.
• Empirical evidence can guide decision-makers in allocating resources to enhance local-level disaster resilience.