Assessing Community Resilience to Urban Flooding Using an AHP–BRIC Model: A Case Study of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan

Urban flooding is one of the most devastating natural disasters, causing substantial economic losses and human fatalities. Community resilience plays a critical role in helping societies prepare, respond, and recover from natural disasters. This study aimed to assess the multifactor domain of community resilience in the flood-prone region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan. The multifactor flood resilience indicators were initially established through a comprehensive literature review and then classified into resilience domains based on the baseline resilience indicators for communities (BRIC) model. Primary data on the community flood resilience indicators were collected using questionnaires. A total of 240 households were selected from the three communities of Peshawar, Nowshera, and Mardan using random sampling techniques for data collection. The resilience indicator data were first normalized, and then the descriptive statistics method was employed to evaluate community resilience across six domains. The significance of each domain was assessed using field experts’ information, which was converted into an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) weights approach. Subsequently, the comprehensive resilience of the communities was established, and statistical techniques were used to compare the resilience domains and their components. The results showed that social resilience had the highest value, whereas psychological resilience had the lowest value in all three communities. This study provides several recommendations to help communities increase their flood resilience.