A localized disaster-resilience index to assess coastal communities based on an analytic hierarchy process (AHP)

The increased number of natural hazards due to climate variability has resulted in numerous disasters in developing countries. In the Philippines, these are expected to be more common in coastal areas. The common approach to mitigate disasters in this area is to enhance the inherent capabilities of local communities to reduce the effects. Thus, this study proposed an index for a disaster-resilient coastal community at the local level. The composites of the index were determined through a process of prioritizing national-level components of a risk-management and vulnerability-reduction system. The process followed a Delphi technique, wherein 20 decision makers in Baler, Aurora, the Philippines identified criteria and elements that can be used to reduce the vulnerability of coastal communities using paired comparisons for the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The results showed that the environmental and natural resource management, sustainable livelihood, social protection, and planning regimes were very important and represented ≥70% of the overall weights of criteria subjected to comparisons. These criteria and their elements represented the local-level outcome indicators of the composite index for a disaster-resilient coastal community, which was measured using a weighted linear average (WLC) approach to both outcome and process indicators. The index could be used by local governments as a tool to facilitate meaningful disaster-risk reduction and management.