Modelling a community resilience index for urban flood-prone areas of Kerala, India (CRIF)

This paper develops a community resilience index for Kerala’s urban flood-prone areas (CRIF) through a rigorous bottom-up approach. Communities are ever-evolving, cities are constantly expanding, and the threat of natural hazards has escalated like never before. Cities can develop and prosper only if their society is resilient to external shocks. Measuring community resilience over time is crucial with the influence of technology and change in community lifestyles.

With the frequent onset of floods in Kerala in recent years, the community must be well-prepared for future calamities. The criteria for the index were developed using multi-criteria decision analysis that covered a fuzzy Delphi study, an empirical study using multi-variate probit regression, and an AHP analysis. Further, the CRIF Index is put into action through a case study of the Kochi Municipal Corporation area, and the results are also validated using the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient method.