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Defining disaster resilience: comparisons from key stakeholders involved in emergency management in Victoria, Australia
Author(s) -
Goode Natassia,
Salmon Paul M.,
Spencer Caroline,
McArdle Dudley,
Archer Frank
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
disasters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.744
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1467-7717
pISSN - 0361-3666
DOI - 10.1111/disa.12189
Subject(s) - resilience (materials science) , emergency management , work (physics) , key (lock) , human factors and ergonomics , environmental resource management , business , poison control , public relations , computer security , engineering , political science , computer science , medical emergency , medicine , economics , mechanical engineering , physics , law , thermodynamics
Three years after the introduction of the National Strategy for Disaster Resilience there remains no unanimously adopted definition of disaster resilience within Australia's emergency management sector. The aim of this study is to determine what the concept means to key stakeholders in the emergency management sector in the Australian State of Victoria, and how these conceptualisations overlap and diverge. Via an online survey, 113 people were asked how they define disaster resilience in their work in the emergency management sector. A data mining software tool, Leximancer, was employed to uncover the relationships between the definitions provided. The findings show that stakeholders see resilience as an ‘ability’ that encompasses emergency management activities and personal responsibility. However, the findings also highlight some possible points of conflict between stakeholders. In addition, the paper outlines and discusses a number of potential consequences for the implementation and the success of the resilience‐based approach in Australia.