Analysis of Resilience Dimensions of Local Communities Against Flood risk (Case study: Gorgan River Watershed, Golestan province)

During the recent years, the occurrence of environmental hazards and the occurrence of harmful damages and significant losses caused by it has become a major challenge in most parts of the world. In order to reduce the effects of environmental hazards, consideration has been given to the resilience approach. Resilience is considered as one of the effective measures in the risk management process. It is also a community-oriented approach that improves the preparedness of local communities against instabilities caused by hazards. By knowing and understanding the level of resilience, it is possible to help reduce injuries and destructive effects with proper planning. Natural disasters reduce resilience in three ways. physical damage; including damage to residential, commercial uses, equipment and facilities. Economic damages; including loss of employment, business interruption, repair and reconstruction costs. Social harms; including the impact on people who need medical assistance and shelter. Among these natural hazards in Golestan province, we can mention facing natural disasters such as the flood of 2018. Therefore, the present research was carried out with the aim of determining the effective indicators in measuring the resilience of rural settlements in the Gorgan-rud watershed and determining the extent and importance of the social, economic and ecological resilience of the surveyed villages against the floods of the mentioned year.

The studied area is Gorganrood watershed, located in the heights of Golestan forest.  The current research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-analytical in terms of method. This research was done using two documentary and field methods using a questionnaire tool. The statistical population includes native residents, which consists of 126 villages and a total population of 22,942 households. Among the most populated villages in the upstream, central and downstream parts of the region, some villages were selected by two-stage cluster random sampling method based on the Cochran method. Finally, 10 populated villages and 200 heads of households were selected. The research questionnaires include three social-cultural dimensions (19 components), economic (5 components) and environmental-management (7 components). The content validity of the questionnaire was also confirmed by asking the opinions of the professors related to the subject, and then data was collected by using interviews and questionnaires. In the descriptive findings, only the individual characteristics of the respondents have been investigated. In the analytical findings, a sample t-test was used. To make statistical inferences, the mean resilience of the components was compared with the optimal mean. Kruskal-Wallis test was used in order to investigate the internal relationship between the effective macro-dimensions of the resilience of rural settlements in the face of crisis. The Kolmogorov Smirnov test was used to check the normality of the data distribution, the Friedman test was used to rank the items related to each index, and the Spearman test was used to analyze the correlation coefficients.

The results of the examination of 21 components in three economic, social and environmental dimensions showed, the social index with an average of 2.89 impact and the environmental index with an average of 2.30 had respectively the highest and the lowest impact on the resilience of the villages. Also, the highest mean of social index (3.09) was observed in Sadegh Abad village and the lowest mean (2.69) was observed in Bahlke Sheikh Musa village. The highest average of the economic index (3.36) was observed in Sahne Sofli village and the lowest average (2.49) was observed in Bahlke Sheikh Musa village. The highest average of the environmental index (2.42) was observed in Sadeghabad village and the lowest average (2.02) was observed in Aghabad village. Totally, the resilience of Sahne Sefali village had the highest level (2.89) in terms of the investigated indicators. The results of T-test samples and Kruskal Wallis of the studied villages indicated the existence of significant differences in all social-cultural, economic and environmental-management indexes (P<0.05). Also, the findings showed that the total resilience with a value of 2.65 was lower than the average and there was a significant difference between the villages (P<0.05). The results of prioritizing dimensions of resilience using Friedman's test also showed that socio-cultural factors had a higher priority than other indexes and environmental-management factors was in the last priority.

According to the results, it can be suggested that one of the most necessary activities for planning the current situation is to pay attention to the indicators that lead to increasing the level of resilience of the local watershed community. Therefore, considering that the calculated value of the resilience number is lower than the base limit (3) in different indexes, especially from the environmental-management aspect. Therefore, considering that the calculated value of the resilience number is lower than the base limit (3) in different dimensions, especially from the environmental-management aspect. Therefore, it is better to move towards creating resilient societies with high adaptive capacity by relying on crisis management. It will not be possible without recognizing and rooting the weaknesses of the society and the continuous communication of the responsible institutions and organizations with the local communities by social facilitators. At the same time, considering that the resilience of local communities against floods is a time-consuming and gradual process; establishing continuous interaction between villages with a higher resilience coefficient and villages with a lower rate in order to benefit from each other's experiences. It is suggested to hold workshops and training courses on preparedness to deal with possible floods to describe and implement them in the studied villages.