Fostering disaster mitigation through community participation - case of Kochi residents following the Kerala floods of 2018 and 2019

Community participation has grown in prominence in mitigating disasters globally. It involves the active involvement in search and rescue to reconstruction that people affected by disasters undertake unsolicited. Predictive power in disaster recovery has further increased its relevance. However, quantitative analysis that community participation has on disaster mitigation measures is scant.

The study analyses community participation’s impact on disaster mitigation measures following the Kochi flood of 2018 and 2019 in India. We use a Multivariate Probit Regression model with a sample size of 750 to analyse the relationship between disaster mitigation measures (namely, disaster event planning, previous experience, following disaster-related news closely, and neighbourhood relationship) and community participation.

Results show participants who were active in community events were 23% more likely to adopt all the disaster mitigation measures than those who did not. In addition, households with special-needs members were more likely to be prepared for an unanticipated event. Results also showed higher education levels directly correlated to implementing more significant disaster mitigation measures. Implications for government policy formation include schemes to enhance community rehabilitation and promote social participation to mitigate future disaster events.