Disaster Risk and the Prospect of Enhancing the Resilience of the African Community in Auckland

Abstract

Many urban communities have emerged in Auckland as a result of international migration. A significant concern for these communities is the relocation from an environment of known risks and familial support to an unfamiliar environment. The concern is essential because of the hazardous landscape of Auckland and the expected impact of climate change, which is anticipated to increase the vulnerability of at‐risk communities. This research investigates how the African community could enhance its resilience to the challenges that may be posed by a potential disaster. Interviews with participants from two African communities were the source of data collection. The interview data were analyzed using the general inductive method for qualitative data analysis. The research discusses emergent themes in line with prior research on community resilience. This research suggests an improvement in community risk awareness, compensation mechanism, capacity building, and community cohesion to improve resilience. The success of these findings depends on the extent to which government agencies address them in future planning for resilience.

Transnational migration and disaster risk reduction: Insights from Chinese migrants living in Auckland, New Zealand

“…This study did not find any relationship between the length of residence in the country and perception of risks. In other words, Chinese migrants who had been in New Zealand for a shorter period did not have lower perception of risk as often discussed in the literature (Wang et al, 2012;Odiase et al, 2020). Overall Chinese migrants were aware of hazards and disaster risk in Auckland, which contrasts the typical discourse on migrants in the face of disasters (Guadagno, 2015;Guadagno, 2016).…”

“…Despite the growing number of Chinese migrants living in Auckland's super-diverse urban environment, to the authors' knowledge, no research to date has been conducted to understand their perceptions of disaster risk and experiences in the face of hazards and disasters. In the New Zealand context, the limited literature on migrants in relation to disasters and disaster risk reduction have focused on Southeast Asians, Pacific Peoples or refugees (Marlowe and Lou, 2013;Marlowe, 2015;Uekusa and Matthewman, 2017;Marlowe et al, 2018;Grayman et al, 2019;Odiase et al, 2020). Given the paucity of information pertaining to Asian, specifically Chinese, migrants in the face of disasters, the presented qualitative descriptive study aimed to understand aspects of Chinese migration in relation to disasters and explore strategies for migrantinclusive disaster risk reduction.…”

An integrated framework for assessment of smart city resilience

“…Therefore, resilience suggests that a city should absorb, adapt, and transform external pressures and urban security assurances during hazards, disasters or crises. Further evolutions have occurred in various research areas, such as the resilience measurement tool developed for Tanzanian water supply systems (Sweya et al, 2020a), identification of technical factors affecting water supply system resilience (Balaei et al, 2018), and strengthening resilience through increasing community’s understanding concerning risks, compensation systems, community development and cohesion (Odiase et al, 2020).…”

The impact of social distancing on community case count in the United States: Testing the efficacy of protection motivation theory during early stages of the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…Research on social compliance (Duck et al, 2000) suggests that the persuasive impact of messaging is enhanced when using icons and organizations with whom the target audience is highly identified. Cuomo et al (2020) and Odiase et al (2020) suggest the importance of harnessing the power of local religious institutions and racial, ethnic, and cultural bonds in crisis response.…”