Resilience
What does this word really mean? It has been bandied around a lot in recent times post-COVID and more so after the Flooding event in October 2022.
I decided to explore the meaning of the word – it is easy to say that resilience be developed but what does it really mean. It is the same as saying that you should be “nice” to people, but what does it really mean? I did a bit of research about this topic as I was really keen to know what the implications would be for a community – developing and building resilience in a flood prone area.
I found lots of research and scientific publications. There are basically three frameworks of resilience: engineering, ecological and social within the context of flood risk.
I am going to focus on developing socio-ecological resilience. This framework provides guidance for developing systems and frameworks resulting in protection, prevention and preparedness. Research has also shown that translating these concepts into practice remains a challenge.
However, after being on Council for two and a half years, the conclusion I have come to, is that we have an extremely resilient community in the Central Goldfields Shire. “The concept of resilience in flood risk management has contributed to the notion that societies should learn to live with floods and should mitigate disastrous consequences and not seek to avoid them entirely”.
The mere fact that people have been willing to stay residing where they are, working hard at their individual recovery, demonstrates the strength and resilience in our community. But we should not be complacent. All our residents, no matter how resilient they are, need support in this. We are excited to welcome our new Recovery Officer, funded by the State government, who will be working closely with our impacted communities over the coming months.
(Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7061972/)
