Proceedings of the 9th U.S.

National and 10th Canadian Conference on Earthquake Engineering

Compte Rendu de la 9ième Conférence Nationale Américaine et
10ième Conférence Canadienne de Génie Parasismique
July 25-29, 2010, Toronto, Ontario, Canada • Paper No 1827

DEVELOPING THE ‘PEOPLES’ RESILIENCE FRAMEWORK FOR DEFINING AND

MEASURING DISASTER RESILIENCE AT THE COMMUNITY SCALE

C.S. Renschler1, A.E. Frazier2, L.A. Arendt3, G.P. Cimellaro4, A.M. Reinhorn5, M. Bruneau6

ABSTRACT

The objective of this research was to establish a holistic framework for defining
and measuring disaster resilience for a community at various scales. Seven
dimensions of community resilience have been identified and are represented by
the acronym PEOPLES: Population and Demographics, Environmental/
Ecosystem, Organized Governmental Services, Physical Infrastructure, Lifestyle
and Community Competence, Economic Development, and Social-Cultural
Capital. The proposed PEOPLES Resilience Framework provides the basis for
development of quantitative and qualitative models that measure continuously the
resilience of communities against extreme events or disasters in any or a
combination of the above-mentioned dimensions. Over the longer term, this
framework will enable the development of geospatial and temporal decision-
support software tools that help planners and other key decision makers and
stakeholders to assess and enhance the resilience of their communities.

Introduction

In recent years, the concept of resilience has gained attention recognizing the fact that not
all threats or disasters can be averted. Indeed, societies are turning their attention to efforts and
ways that can enhance the community resilience of entire communities against various types of
extreme events. Resilience is clearly becoming increasingly important for modern societies as
states come to accept that they cannot prevent every risk from being realized but rather must
learn to adapt and manage risks in a way that minimizes impact on human and other systems.
While studies on the disaster resilience of technical systems have been undertaken for quite some
time, the societal aspects and the inclusion of various and multiple types of extreme events are
new developments. In this regard, countries and states around the world are increasingly
debating ways to enhance community resilience.

1
Assoc Professor, Dept of Geography, MCEER, NCGIA, Univ. at Buffalo, 105 Wilkeson Quad, Buffalo, NY 14261
2
Grad R.A., Dept of Geography, MCEER, NCGIA, University at Buffalo
3
Asst Professor, Management, Professional Programs in Business, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, WI
4
Asst Professor, Dept of Structural and Geotechnical Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy
5
Professor, Dept of Civil Structural and Environmental Engineering, MCEER, University at Buffalo, NY
6
Professor, Dept of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, MCEER, University at Buffalo, NY
1
 At this time, there is no explicit set of procedures in the existing literature that suggests
how to quantify resilience in the context of multiple hazards, how to compare communities with
one another in terms of their resilience, or how to determine whether individual communities are
moving in the direction of becoming more resilient in the face of various hazards. Considerable
research has been accomplished to assess direct and indirect losses attributable to earthquakes,
and to estimate the reduction of these losses as a result of specific actions, policies, or scenarios.
However, the notion of resilience suggests a much broader framework than the reduction of
monetary losses alone. Equally important, in addition to focusing on the losses produced by
multiple hazards, research must also address the ways in which specific pre- and post-event
measures and strategies can prevent and contain losses (Alesch, Arendt, & Holly 2009; Bruneau
et al. 2003).

Resilience (R) may be defined as a function indicating the capability to sustain a level of
functionality or performance for a given building, bridge, lifeline network, or community, over a
period defined as the control time TLC. The control time is usually decided by building owners or
society, for example, and corresponds to the expected life cycle or life span of the building or
other system. Resilience is defined graphically as the normalized shaded area underneath the
functionality function of a system, defined as Q(t). Q(t) is a non-stationary stochastic process,
and each ensemble is a piecewise continuous function as shown in Figure 1:

Q(t) %
100
50 0<R <1
R
0 t0E1 t0E2+TRE2
Time (days)
TLC
Emergency tOE +TLC

response time R= ∫ Q ( t ) TLC dt

tOE
(short term)
Figure 1 Schematic Representation of Community Resilience

where Q(t) is the functionality function of the region considered. The functionality is the
combination of all functionalities related to different facilities, lifelines, etc.

The Seven Dimensions of Community Resilience

Disaster resilience is often divided between technological units and social systems. On a
small scale, when considering critical infrastructures, the focus is mainly on technological
aspects. On a greater scale, when considering an entire community, the focus is broadened to
include the interplay of multiple systems – human, environmental, and others – which together
add up to ensure the healthy functioning of a society. At the community level, the human
component is central, because in the case of a major disruptive event, resilience depends first on
the actions of people operating at the individual and neighborhood scale (Figure 2). Community
2
resilience also depends heavily on the actions of different levels of government and its agencies
at the local and regional scales when a disruptive extreme event occurs (see the geographic
scales I and II in Figure 2.

In order to emphasize the primary role of the human system in community sustainability,
we are using the acronym “PEOPLES.” This nomenclature highlights both the physical and
environmental assets as well as the socio-economic-political/organizational aspects of a
particular community (see Figure 2).

POPULATION AND DEMOGRAPHICS Single

Units Individual Plot Property Building

Composition, Distribution, Socio-Economic status, etc. I Aggreg

ated Family Neighborhood

ENVIRONMENTAL/ECOSYSTEM Town City Municipality

Air quality, Soil, Biomass, Biodiversity, etc.
II LOCAL
ORGANIZED GOVERNMENTAL SERVICES City

Legal and security services, Health services, etc. County

PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE III Multi-County/Regional

REGIONAL

Facilities, Lifelines, etc.

State
LIFESTYLE AND COMMUNITY COMPETENCE IV Multi-State
Quality of Life, etc.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT National

Financial, Production, Employment distribution, etc. V Multi-National

SOCIAL-CULTURAL CAPITAL Continental

Education services, Child and elderly care services, etc. VI Global

Figure 2 The PEOPLES Resilience Framework and associated Geographic Scales

The PEOPLES Resilience Framework is built on and expands previous research at

MCEER linking several previously identified resilience dimensions (technical, organizational,
societal, and economic) and resilience properties (r4: robustness, redundancy, resourcefulness,
and rapidity) (Bruneau, et al. 2003). PEOPLES incorporates MCEER’s widely accepted
definitions of service functionality, its components (assets, services, demographics) and the
parameters influencing their integrity and resilience.

The PEOPLES Resilience Framework defines components of functionality using a

geospatial-temporal distribution within its influence boundaries. Interdependencies between and
among these components are key to determining the resilience of communities. PEOPLES
enables the use of various community resilience indices that integrate over space and time the
system functionality and services of a community in a landscape setting. In this particular
dimension, historical and continuously gathered information through remote sensing and
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) will play a major role in assessing the resilience of all
integrated systems and feed a predictive resilience model. Resilience can be considered as a
dynamic quantity that changes over time and across space. To be able to expand the assessment
of resilience to a community and landscape perspective, the PEOPLES Resilience Framework is
3
based on basic community organizational units at a local (neighborhoods, villages, towns or
cities) and regional scale (counties/parishes, regions, or states) (see Figure 2).

The following describes briefly each of the seven dimensions associated with the
PEOPLES Resilience Framework and some potential indicators. The dimensions are neither
orthogonal nor synonymous. While they are discussed as distinct dimensions and while we
anticipate developing measures that are often independent, the nature of community resilience is
such that interdependence between and among the dimensions is expected. The potential
indicators are intended to be illustrative rather than exhaustive. Importantly, the indicators that
are identified are those that may be used to describe a community and its resilience at any time,
and not simply post-extreme event. Ultimately, the value of the PEOPLES Resilience
Framework is that it (a) identifies the distinct dimensions and related key indicators but also (b)
aggregates the dimensions in ways that reflect community realities.

The PEOPLES Resilience Framework requires the combination of qualitative and

quantitative data sources at various temporal and spatial scales, and as a consequence,
information needs to be aggregated or disaggregated to match the scales of the resilience model
and the scales of interest for the model output.

1. Population and Demographics

A measure of functionality of population and demographics Qp within a given community

could be quantified by using the social vulnerability index (SoVI) proposed by Cutter (1996).
Social vulnerability (a counterpart of social resilience) is defined as the inability of people,
organizations, and societies to withstand adverse impacts from multiple stressors to which they
are exposed. These impacts are due in part to characteristics inherent in social interactions,
institutions, and systems of cultural values. Social vulnerability is a pre-existing condition of the
community that affects the society’s ability to prepare for and recover from a disruptive event.

This dimension of vulnerability can be measured using a social index that describes the
socioeconomic status, the composition of the population (elderly and children), development
density, rural agriculture, race, gender, ethnicity, infrastructure employment, and county
debt/revenue. The social index described is based on Cutter’s Hazards-of-Place Model of
Vulnerability framework that integrates exposure to hazards with the social conditions that make
people vulnerable to them (Cutter 1996; Cutter et al. 2000). High SoVI indicates high
vulnerability, and conversely, low SoVI indicates low vulnerability. Analytically, functionality
of population can be given as follow:

QP ( r , t ) = 1 ( f 1 + f 2 + f 3 + f 4 + f 5 + f 6 + f 7 + f 8 + f 9 + f 10 + f 11) (1)

where f1, f2, .., fn are the 11 independent factors considered. Among the 11 independent factors
are socioeconomic status, elderly and children, development density, rural agriculture, race,
gender, ethnicity, infrastructure employment, and county debt/revenue. Additionally, qualitative
and quantitative measures about population and demographics from the US Census database are
an essential component for this dimension of the PEOPLES Resilience Framework. Key
4
indicators include educational attainment, marital status, annual income, age, gender,
race/ethnicity distribution, and other data that describe and differentiate the focal population.

2. Environment/Ecosystem

Ecological or ecosystem resilience is typically measured by the amount of disturbance an

ecosystem can absorb without drastically altering its functions, processes and structures
(Gunderson 2000), or by the ability of an ecosystem to cope with disturbance. In the context of
the PEOPLES Resilience Framework, environmental and ecosystem resources serve as
indicators for measuring the ability of the ecological system to return to or near its pre-event
state.

The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is a simple numerical indicator

calculated from satellite-derived remote sensing imagery that analyzes the density of green
vegetation across a region. This NDVI is used in the framework as a proxy for ecosystem
productivity and is calculated using the red (Red) and near infrared (NIR) absorption bands:

NDVI = (NIR – Red)/(NIR + Red) (2)

NDVI correlates strongly with above-ground net primary productivity (NPP) (Pettorelli
2005, Olofsson et al. 2007, Prince 1991), which measures biomass accumulation and can be an
indicator of ecosystem resilience. Simoniello et al (2008) characterized the resilience of Italian
landscapes using a time series to calculate NDVI trends, and Diaz-Delgado et al. (2002) used
NDVI values derived from Landsat imagery to monitor vegetation recovery after fire
disturbance.

Building on previous research, the PEOPLES Resilience Framework quantifies

ecological resilience through a comparison of stable-state NDVI trends to post-disturbance
NDVI trends to determine differences in ecosystem productivity across spatio-temporal scales.
NDVI is applicable for quantifying ecosystem structure following disturbances such as fire,
flooding, and hurricanes. In other types of disasters such as terrorist attacks or blizzards,
vegetation density and ecosystem structure may not be altered. In these instances, ecological
resilience quantification through NDVI would be negligible and other indicators would be more
relevant.

3. Organized Governmental Services

In contrast to the more or less spontaneous individual and neighborhood responses to

extreme events, organized governmental services are designed to allow an orderly response.
Organized governmental services include traditional legal and security services such as police,
emergency and fire departments and in extreme cases, the military. In this dimension, we also
include the services provided by public health and hygiene departments as well as cultural
heritage departments. Each of these organized government services plays a key role in sustaining
communities both before and after extreme events. A good example of the necessity of a well-
functioning government may be seen in the devastating January 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti. In
5
the aftermath, the news media has reported a lack of government services and orderly control,
and a general perception that the government is not in a position to help its people (Schwartz
2010).

Key indicators for this dimension include the number of available response units and
their capacity. Population and Demographic numbers would be used to normalize the number
and capacity of these services. In addition to assessing the availability of government services in
terms of personnel and equipment, this dimension also includes an evaluation of emergency
preparedness planning. For example, surveys may reveal the extent to which organized
government services have developed MOUs and other types of mutual aid agreements, and the
extent to which various organized government services participate in emergency and evacuation
drills and table-top exercises (Tierney 2009).

4. Physical Infrastructure

The physical infrastructure dimension incorporates both facilities and lifelines. Within
the category of facilities, we include housing, commercial facilities, and cultural facilities.
Within the category of lifelines, we include food supply, health care, utilities, transportation, and
communication networks.

In terms of housing, key indicators may include proportion of housing stock not rated as
substandard or hazardous and vacancy rates for rental housing (Tierney 2009). In terms of
communication networks, key indicators may include adequacy (or sufficiency) of procedures
for communicating with the public and addressing the public’s need for accurate information
following disasters, adequacy of linkages between official and unofficial information sources,
and adequacy of ties between emergency management entities and mass media serving diverse
populations (Tierney 2009).

5. Lifestyle and Community Competence

Norris et al. (2008) describe community resilience as “a metaphor, theory, set of

capabilities and strategy for disaster readiness” (p. 127). One of the capabilities they discuss is
community competence. Community competence is essential to community resilience in the
same way that individual competence is essential to personal hardiness. Community competence
deals with community action, critical reflection and problem solving skills, flexibility and
creativity, collective efficacy, empowerment, and political partnerships (Norris et al. 2008).

This dimension reflects the reality that community resilience is not simply a passive
“bouncing back” to pre-disaster conditions (Brown & Kulig 1996/97) but rather a concerted and
active effort that relies on peoples’ ability to creatively imagine a new future and then take the
requisite steps to achieve that desired future. It captures both the raw abilities of the community
(e.g., ability to develop multifaceted solutions to complex problems, ability to engage in
meaningful political networks) and the community’s perceptions of its ability to effect positive
change. Communities that collectively believe that they can rebuild, restructure, and revive

6
themselves are more likely to be persistent in the face of environmental, governmental, and other
obstacles.

Quality of life surveys often reveal whether members of a given community are
committed to the community and willing to engage in the activities necessary to sustain the
community, regardless of whether a disaster strikes. Less soft general indicators of community
competence may include measures of migration, measures of citizen involvement in politics, and
others. Disaster-specific indicators may include the comprehensiveness of community warning
plans and procedures, and the extensiveness of citizen and organizational disaster training
programs (Tierney 2009).

6. Economic Development

For our purposes, economic development includes both the static assessment of a
community’s current economy (economic activity) and the dynamic assessment of a
community’s ability to sustain economic growth (economic development). As described in the
RICSA Poverty Project (2010), economic activity takes into account the supply of labor for the
production of economic goods and services, which includes “all production and processing of
primary products whether for market, for barter or for own consumption, the production of all
other goods for the market and, in the case of households which produce such goods and services
for the market, the corresponding production for own consumption.” Economic development
addresses the future and growth. It addresses a community’s efforts to increase its “productive
capacities ..., in terms of technologies (more efficient tools and machines), technical cultures
(knowledge of nature, research and capacity to develop improved technologies), and the
physical, technical and organizational capacities and skills of those engaged in production.”

Resilient communities are characterized by their involvement in a diverse array of

products and services that are both produced in and available to the community. Diversity in
production and employment is linked to a community’s ability to substitute goods and services
and shift employment patterns as the situation demands. The PEOPLES Resilience Framework
incorporates three illustrative subcategories within this dimension: industry – production,
industry – employment distribution, and financial services. Primary indicators of this dimension
include the proportion of the population that is employed within the various industries, and the
variability that might characterize a community’s industrial employment distribution.

This dimension is closely interwoven with the Population and Demographics dimension.
For example, key indicators of economic development beyond employment and industry
distribution include literacy rates, life expectancy, and poverty rates. Disaster-specific indicators
related to economic development include extent of evacuation plans and drills for high-
occupancy structures, adequacy of plans for inspecting damaged buildings following disasters,
and adequacy of plans for post-disaster commercial reconstruction (Tierney 2009).

7
7. Social-Cultural Capital

According to Norris and her colleagues (2008), “individuals invest, access, and use
resources embedded in social networks to gain returns” (p. 137). For our purposes, social/cultural
capital incorporates several subcategories, including education service, child and elderly
services, cultural and heritage services, and community participation. Social/cultural capital is
prerequisite to community competence (Norris et al. 2008) in that it incorporates the array of
services that the community has chosen to provide for itself, understanding that community
health requires more than good jobs and infrastructure. It also includes several intangible
“goods,” such as social support, sense of community, place attachment, and citizen participation
(Norris et al. 2008).

For example, social support underlies many of the services associated with social/cultural
capital. It includes both the “helping behaviors within family and friendship networks” and the
“relationships between individuals and their larger neighborhoods and communities” (Norris et
al. 2008, p. 139). People choose to provide social and cultural services that manifest and extend
their sense of community, defined as an attitude of bonding with other members of one’s group or
locale (Perkins et al. 2002, cited in Norris et al. 2008). They may feel an emotional connection to
their neighborhood or city, which may or may not relate to the people who inhabit those places
(Manzo & Perkins 2006). For example, after Hurricane Katrina, many displaced residents of
New Orleans expressed a strong desire to return home, irrespective of the people they knew or
the jobs they once had. It seems likely that people with a strong “place attachment” would be
more willing to act in order to help their community bounce back after a disaster, assuming that
other essential factors such as employment and housing were available. Citizen participation
takes into account the “engagement of community members in formal organizations, including
religious congregations, school and resident associations, neighborhood watches, and self-help
groups” (Norris et al. 2008, p. 139). Participation in community organizations is a means of
demonstrating one’s care for one’s community. Pragmatically, participation in community
organizations is a means for meeting and understanding one’s fellow citizens. It increases
individuals’ circle of influence and perception of control.

Measuring social/cultural capital requires acquisition of tallies, such as the number of

members belonging to various civil and community organizations. It also requires surveys of
community leaders and their perceptions (e.g., quality of life surveys). Disaster-specific
indicators include existence of community plans targeting transportation-disadvantaged
populations, adequacy of post-disaster sheltering plans, adequacy of plans for incorporating
volunteers and others into official response activities, adequacy of donations management plans,
and the community’s plans to coordinate across diverse community networks (Tierney 2009).

Integration of Dimensions using Time Dependent Functionality

Within the PEOPLES Resilience Framework, each dimension and its indicators or term
of functionality and/or service will be represented with a GIS layer of the area of interest as
suggested in the example portrayed in Figure 3, where QEP = functionality of electric power
system; QH= functionality of health care system; QRN= functionality of road network; QWS=
8
functionality of the potable water distribution system and so on. This list of functionality terms
that can be inserted within the physical infrastructure is not complete. Additional terms can be
added, such as functionality of schools, dams, fire stations, oil and natural gas systems,
emergency centers, communication towers/antennae, etc.

S QEP(t)

+
QH(t)

+
QRN(t)

=
QTOT(t)
Figure 3 Schematic representation of time dependent community functionality maps

Community resilience indices for each dimension, or as a combined index, will be

dependent on a defined temporal and geographic scale. First the geographic scale needs to be
defined (see Figure 2), and then it is possible to plot a time dependent functionality map. When
the time scale is also defined, then the resilience map of the region of interest can be plotted. The
map will vary in space, but it will be time independent. Finally the community resilience index is
given by the double integral over time and space as follows:
tOE +TLC

R (r ) = ∫ QTOT ( r , t ) TLC dt (3)

tOE

where QTOT(r,t)=global functionality that is a function of time and space and combines all
functionality terms considered; r=position vector; t= time parameter; TLC= control time.

Concluding Remarks

The seven dimensions of community resilience are indentified within the new PEOPLES
Resilience Framework as Population and Demographics, Environmental/Ecosystem, Organized
Governmental Services, Physical Infrastructure, Lifestyle and Community Competence,
Economic Development, and Social-Cultural Capital. PEOPLES builds on and expands previous
research at MCEER (also known as the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering
Research at the University at Buffalo) linking the four resilience properties (robustness,
redundancy, resourcefulness, and rapidity) and resilience dimensions (technical, organizational,
societal, and economic) so as to measure the disaster resilience of capital assets (e.g., hospitals)
and asset classes (e.g., health care facilities). Over the longer term, the PEOPLES Resilience
Framework and its associated database access will enable the development of decision-support
software tools that help planners and other key decision makers and stakeholders to enhance the
disaster resilience of their communities.
9
 Acknowledgments
This research is sponsored by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST),
Building and Fire Research Laboratory, Award No. 60NANB9D9155_0, and by the European
Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (Marie Curie IRG Actions - FP7/2007-2013
under the project ICRED - Integrated European Disaster Community Resilience.

References
Alesch, D. J., Arendt, L. A., & Holly, J. N. 2009. Managing for long-term recovery in the aftermath of
disaster. Fairfax, VA: Public Entity Risk Institute (PERI).
Brown, D., & Kulig, J. (1996/97). The concept of resiliency: Theoretical lessons from community
research. Health and Canadian Society, 4, 29-52.
Bruneau M, Chang S, Eguchi R, G. Lee, O’Rourke T, Reinhorn AM, Shinozuka M, Tierney K, Wallace
W,Winterfelt Dv. (2003). A framework to Quantitatively Assess and Enhance the Seismic Resilience
of Communities. Earthquake Spectra, 19(4), 733-752.
Cimellaro GP, Fumo C, Reinhorn AM, Bruneau M. Quantification of Seismic Resilience of Health care
facilities. (2009). MCEER Technical Report-MCEER-09-0009. Multidisciplinary Center for
Earthquake Engineering Research, Buffalo, NY,
Cimellaro, G. P., Reinhorn, A. M., and Bruneau, M. (2010). "Seismic resilience of a hospital system."
Structure and Infrastructure Engineering, 6(1-2), 127-144.
Cutter, S.L. (1996). Vulnerability to Environmental Hazards. Progress in Human Geography 20(4):529–
39.
Cutter, S. L., J. T. Mitchell, et al., (2000). Revealing the vulnerability of people and places: A case study
of Georgetown County, South Carolina. Annals of American Geographers, 90(4), 713-737.
Diaz-Delgado, R., Lloret, F., Pons, X.,& Terradas, J. (2002). Satellite Evidence of Decreasing Resilience
in Mediterranean Plant Communities After Recurrent Wildfires, Ecology, 83(8), 2293-2303.
Gunderson, L. (2000). Ecological resilience – In theory and application. Annual Review of Ecology and
Systematics, 31, 425-439.
Manzo, L., & Perkins, D. (2006). Finding common ground: The importance of place attachment to
community participation and planning. Journal of Planning Literature, 20, 335-350.
Norris, F. H., Stevens, S. P., Pfefferbaum, B., Wyche, K. F., & Pfefferbaum, R. L. (2008). Community
resilience as a metaphor, theory, set of capabilities, and strategy for disaster readiness. American
Journal of Community Psychology, 41, 127-150.
Olofsson, P., L. Eklundh, F. Lagergren, P. Jonsson and A. Lindroth. (2007). Estimating net primary
production for Scandinavian forests using data from Terra/MODIS. Adv. Space Res., 39, 125-130.
Pettorelli, N., J. Vik, A. Mysterud, J. Gaillard, C. Tucker and N. Stenseth. 2005. Using the satellite-
derived NDVI to assess ecological responses to environmental change. TRENDS in Ecology and
Evolution, 20(9), 503-510.
Prince, S. (1991). A model of regional primary production for use with coarse resolution satellite data.
International Journal of Remote Sensing, 12: 1313-1330.
RICSA (2010) RISCA Poverty Project. URL: http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/ricsa/projects/publicli/poverty.
Schwartz, D. (2010). A big question: Where is Haiti's government? Retrieved March 1, 2010 from:
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/01/22/f-haiti-govt.html
Simoniello, T., M. Lanfredi, M. Liberti, R. Coppola and M. Macchiato. (2008). Estimation of vegetation
cover resilience from satellite time series. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 12, 1053-1064.
Tierney, K. (2009). Disaster response: Research findings and their implications for resilience measures.
CARRI Research Report 6. Oak Ridge, TN: Community and Regional Resilience Initiative (CARRI).
URL: www.resilientUS.org

10