Maatschappelijke Veerkracht van Eiland- en Kustgemeenschappen: Een casestudy in het Nederlandse Waddengebied

Abstract

Community resilience is the capability of a community to cope with a distress at the moment of impact (e.g. an earthquake or economic recession), recover quickly after a distress, and to learn from and adapt to a new societal situation. A resilient society requires active citizenship and multilevel cooperation between nationwide-, regional-, and local government, science and citizens. This study contributes to the empirical literature on community resilience by examining the following research question: ‘How resilient are island and coastal communities in the Dutch Waddensea area, and to what extend are there spatial differences in community resilience between communities with different geographical structures?’ To investigate this question, an indicator based framework has been created based on current scientific knowledge on resilience within the fields of economics, ecology, sociology, risk management, geography and psychology. A quantitative study to Dutch Waddensea communities in 58 municipalities with data from, amongst others, the Dutch statistical office (CBS) and the WoON-questionnaire was conducted to examine the spatial differences in coping capacity, recovery capacity, and adaption recovery. Multiple regression analyses showed that the capacity of communities to be resilient varies widely among the different spatial entities. Communities in the eastern part of the province of Groningen show the highest levels of deprivation, and therefore the lowest scores in community resilience. The big cities, like Leeuwarden and Groningen, and their surrounding communities display the highest resilience scores. Islands show a lack of coping capacities due to the deprived status of mobility possibilities, public- and private services and the small labor market. These shortcomings are party compensated by a high level of social and personal resources like social networks, health and financial reserves of island inhabitants. On the municipal level, island communities show high levels of cooperation between the local government and other governmental or non-governmental organizations resulting in a high level of adaption capacity. On the contrary, coastal communities (with an exception for harbor communities) show negative scores on all the components of community resilience compared to other communities. Communities with a high density or a strong regional identity have the highest levels of community resilience. In conclusion, it can be said that large parts of the Waddensea region have high levels of community resilience. But that the coastal communities and the communities in Eastern Groningen have to be treated with caution for they are having the highest risks of not being resilient. Hopefully, policymakers will acknowledge these risks and take action in the high-risk regions. Future research could focus on verifying these results on community resilience of islands and coastal regions in other parts of the world.