The use of participatory modelling to integrate social and infrastructure resilience-building

Abstract

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 adopted by the United Nations argues the need for planning resilience: 1) Improving physical infrastructure assets or physical systems, and 2) Improving social resilience or the social capital needed to effectively respond to a future disaster. However, disaster experts, planning managers, and policymakers made decisions assuming independence between social and physical systems. There is a need to understand the challenge to integrate both social and physical assets, their interactions, and non-linear complexity to make informed decisions. For example, to prepare for faster recovery after the next earthquake, what would you prioritise for investment today? (a) Building stronger classrooms, or (b) training teachers to be able to motivate children to study effectively in post-earthquake settings, or (c) some of both. The difficulty in making this type of decision highlights the constant tensions between social and infrastructure resilience. The example demonstrates how the level of analysis needs to be at the larger socio-technical system. This research aims to develop participatory methodologies to bring stakeholders together to collaboratively analyse and evaluate those interconnections. The four goals are to: (1) Develop a conceptual model and validate with stakeholders, (2) Develop materials and details for workshops on Participatory Modelling, (3) Conduct trials and refine approach while also considering the added value of gamification (4) Consider the potential for the approach to be applied to other socio-technical systems The resulting modelling methodology will have the potential to improve disaster risk governance and disaster resilience planning and practice, in New Zealand and internationally, by empowering multiple stakeholders through the use of collaborative learning, and by increasing the efficacy and legitimacy of resilience-building decision making.