Community Resilience to Climate Change: Theory, Research and Practice

130 It is striking, however, that this study finds that the strongest and most consistent relationship is with having had advance knowledge (presumably through some form of early warning system) of a flood’s occurrence. The mechanisms are unclear and will warrant further exploration, but these variables suggest potentially valuable policy levers to enhance resilience through the provision of early warning and (to a lesser extent) by raising awareness about the potential severity of extreme flooding. Most importantly, the results provide some confidence to the considerable investments that have gone into early warning systems (EWS) as a means of supporting disaster risk reduction and resilience regionally and globally (Sorensen 2000, Basher 2006, Miceli et al. 2008). In particular, our findings underscore the centrality of radio in sharing weather-related information and warnings among East African communities. We believe that our study also demonstrates the ability to use subjective measures of household resilience at scale, i.e., in a national survey, and to administer them using mobile phone technology, which confers notable advantages in terms of cost, frequency, and accessibility. The latter characteristic could be especially useful following a severe climatic shock. It remains to be seen whether standardized scaled-up subjective approaches to resilience measurement can be used for cross-temporal and cross-cultural comparison. Although the former may be relatively straightforward, particularly if panel data are in use, the latter may require considerable thought and validation, both empirical and qualitative, to assess whether internalized notions of resilience mean the same thing across contexts, and if data collected at such scales are meaningful. However, in related work on subjective well- being, there is some, albeit mixed, evidence that cross-cultural measures are meaningful and valid (Jorn and Ryan 2014). If this holds for resilience, then subjective tools may offer some promise in tracing progress in resilience-building over time and across contexts at local, national, and international levels. CONCLUSION The research presented in this paper represents one of the first efforts to collect nationally representative data on subjective aspects of resilience, namely perceptions of the capacity to prepare for, to recover from, and to adapt to an extreme flooding event. We also explore the potential for collecting such data via a mobile phone survey, taking advantage of an ongoing panel survey in Tanzania. We find that while some factors traditionally associated with household resilience such as asset wealth are strongly associated with subjective assessments, others like levels of education, livelihood types, and degree of urbanization have weak and in some cases nonexistent statistical relationships to subjective resilience. However, receipt of advance knowledge of flood risk appears to be one of the strongest predictors of a household’s perceived ability to deal with risk, with notable policy relevance. Above all, the research underlines the need for greater recognition of subjective elements of resilience, not only with regard to how psychological and socio- cultural factors may contribute to a household’s ability to deal with climate risk, but also factoring in people’s knowledge of their own resilience. While the work we have presented suggests the approach we adopt is potentially useful, it is necessarily far from indicative or comprehensive at this stage. Further testing of this instrument and of other efforts to measure perceptions of resilience, alongside objective indicators, is warranted. This includes examining the implications of different definitions and framings of resilience on subjective scores; exploring different multi-item scales to measure subjective resilience; assessing how subjective resilience changes over time and across contexts; and establishing the effects of various cognitive biases. This research also draws attention to a more acute issue facing the study of resilience and resilience-related capacities, namely the lack of a gold standard of what constitutes resilience against which attempts at its measurement could be triangulated. That such a standard might itself be context specific adds yet an additional layer of complexity to this multilayered, yet vitally important, concept. __________ [1] Flood risk was chosen specifically given that it is a rapid onset shock that is easily communicable and defined in a survey context. In addition, flooding is a hazard that affects large areas of Tanzania with recovery typically occurring immediately after the cessation of a flood. It is worth noting that extensive flooding had occurred two weeks prior to the survey (May 2015) affecting areas of Dar es Salaam, Arusha, Kilimanjaro, Tanga, and Kagera. [2] Indeed, Béné et al. (2016a,b) apply a single-item question to represent household resilience in its entirety. Here we choose to disaggregate further by examining distinct resilience-related capacities. [3] Financial support was provided by the Global Resilience Partnership. [4] The individuals and households who participated in this round were assigned “weights” to adjust for nonresponse and design error (Twaweza [date unknown]). The resulting data are intended to be representative of the adult population of mainland Tanzania not including Zanzibar (Twaweza 2013). [5] For one respondent, baseline information was not available and so the corresponding data were removed. [6] Because the Sauti za Wanachi survey is administered by phone, each time it is conducted, the respondent is asked to give their name. In this round, 8 respondents gave a different name than in the baseline and 32 respondents did not provide a name. We removed all 40 responses.