Measuring Disaster Resilience at the Aggregate and Regional Level

Existing research on the impact of natural disasters focus on developing methods for estimating costs of these disasters. Studies mostly explore damage estimation models that measure impact on aggregated macroeconomic growth in the short and long run, with policy implications directed towards adaptation and mitigation strategies. One key issue in the disaster literature that is still evolving is the role of adaptation and resiliency, and how these are measured. Quantifying resilience and vulnerability can aid decision making in the disaster management process. This research explores a new Disaster Resilience Index that can be used to measure a country or a community’s ability to adapt and recover from disaster stress. Compared to other resilience measures, this new resilience index is unique because it is multi-dimensional, simple, practical, adaptable, and pro-poor. An empirical validation is conducted to test the explanatory ability of the index