Community Resilience Indicator Analysis

As disasters continue to increase in frequency and cost, researchers across academic disciplines, including anthropology, ecology, engineering, sociology, and psychology, have attempted to identify and quantify features that make a community more resilient to disasters. In 2018, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) National Integration Center (NIC) Technical Assistance (TA) Branch asked Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) to review this body of research to provide a data-driven basis that would assist in prioritizing locations for TA investment and in informing community resilience TA content. The original analysis, released in 2018, was based primarily on U.S. Census and American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year average data for 2012–۲۰۱۶. This paper presents Argonne’s analysis methodology, updates census-based indicators with the most recent census and ACS 5-year average data (2014–۲۰۱۸). This report will be updated every three years using future census and ACS 5-year average data as funding allows.