| Popis: |
The increase in disasters in recent decades has impacted on humanity through large loss of life and negative long-term economic and environmental consequences. Disasters cannot always be prevented but their impacts can be mitigated through adapted disaster management strategies, including improving community resilience. The aim of this thesis is to develop a framework of community resilience to disaster in Saudi Arabia (CRDSA). Saudi Arabia has experienced a number of disasters between 2005 and 2014; two were of a biological nature H1N1 and MERS-CoV while the rest were caused by flooding. The study uses a mixed-method approach and paradigm of pragmatism, and is structured into three stages. First, based on the literature review, a survey questionnaire is used to examine the public perception of risk of disaster. The second stage is divided into two steps: 1) the Delphi consultation is employed to refine a set of initial criteria, organised into dimensions, derived from a review of the literature, and to explore additional criteria to inform the development of CRDSA. The Delphi technique combines a quantitative calculation to justify each dimension and associated criteria with qualitative views of experts to reach consensus around the proposed CRDSA. Data collection involved three-round questionnaire before achieving experts’ consensus; 2) AHP is used to achieve the objectives of: a) local priority weights from pair-wise comparative methods of judgment and b) determining the importance of the dimensions of the framework. The third stage focuses on the validation of the CRDSA through a real mass gathering event. The approach involves a field study investigation, including interviews and observations during the 2013 Hajj to 1) determine community resilience level at the Hajj, 2) inform prevention strategies against the risk of a MERS-CoV epidemic; and 3) validate the CRDSA in a real situation. The study finds that the proposed CRDSA framework can be used as an assessment tool to build community resilience to disasters in permanent and transient communities. |
