An Introduction to Building Resilience through the Analysis of Areas Particularly Exposed to the Occurrence of Events Threatening the Safety of the Community

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study is to introduce the concept of resilience into the language of security sciences, to contribute to the discussion by presenting the authors’ methodology for developing a hazard map in Poland, its verification using survey results and a proposal to design a process of building resilience based on a culture of trust as component of social capital. It has been known that explaining safety as a state with no threats is an erroneous approach that is not reflected in reality. Threats have always been, and will always be, present. We can only try to prepare for them, make efforts to minimise losses and rebuild the affected entities – people, communities and the environment. Methods: The first stage was to define a list of threats. The next step was to identify threats to a complex social environment, possibly by analysing the available measurable data collected by the relevant institutions, using the authors’ quantitative calculation method. In order to study the community, the survey results were analysed. The article complements the theoretical approach to the culture of trust, along with an explanation of the concept of social capital, which is an introduction to the discussion in the context of building resilience. Results: Two groups of voivodeships were generated during in the course of the study. One of them has included safe, and the other dangerous voivode-ships. The conducted research and its results formed the basis for the analysis of selected areas in terms of differences in the perception of security. Conclusions: In voivodeships where the available statistical data indicate a high level of threats, identified as dangerous, the declared sense of security is lower. The observed differences are small, but significant in the context of the entire study. The results of the statistical analysis coincide with the results of the research conducted by Statistics Poland and presented in the Social Diagnosis. The necessity of taking measures to minimise the risk of threats was not undermined; however, the importance of public information about threats was stressed. Using the proposed easy-to-verify methodology, together with activities that expand social capital, synergy is created, forming a strong building block of social resilience.

Keywords

• hazard maps
• security
• trust
• culture of trust
• social capital
• resilience