Analysis of Social Components Affecting the Resilience of Rural Settlements to Floods (Case Study: Villages in the East of Guilan Province)

Resilience plays an important role in empowering rural communities against flood risk. Therefore, resilience has been paid attention to as a suitable strategy mitigating vulnerability and crisis management of natural disasters in many countries. The present study aims to analyze the social components affecting the resilience of rural areas in the east of Guilan province against flood hazard. The present research is an applied research and data was collected using a descriptive-analytical method based on documentary sources and field studies (questionnaire). The study sample consisted of 379 householders in rural areas which were selected by Cochran's method. Then, one sample T-test was used to prove the significance and generalizability of the results, and coefficient of correlation and regression method were used to analyze the data and the effect of social components on resilience. The results show that the component of collective participation has the greatest impact on improving the resilience of rural communities to the components of place attachment, social trust, and knowledge. Finally, resilience scores from the study area indicate that the villages of Eshkevar Sofla and Divshal are at the lowest level and the villages of Dahgah, Daryasar, and Kojid are at the highest level in terms of social components of resilience to floods.