The Resilience Index is a decision support tool that is being used to inform the investment of community and landscape programs in 50 locations. It delivers a national picture of resilience based on a fire and flood risk overlay and identifies the key factors that can help a community lift resilience. It is based on over 30 indicators of resilience relating to three core areas: hazard exposure, social vulnerability and community capacity.

The tool is unique because it has built indicators at an SA1 resolution, representing 200-700 households, and can be updated when data become available. The SA1 resolution of households provides decision makers with a closer look at the communities most in need of assistance with lifting resilience. Many existing tools examine risk at the local government area — which looks at groups of suburbs and towns.

Another benefit of the Resilience Index is that its indicators can also be aligned with other resilience-based interventions in communities. This spatial data can also be filtered by political and geographical regions.

The Resilience Report provides an invaluable tool to help focus resources — including policy, programs, funds and human capital — on the most at-risk communities in Australia.

The Resilience Index is intentionally not publicly available to ensure that communities have an opportunity to engage and ground truth as part of their available evidence base before it is released.

If you would like to discuss the Resilience Index in more detail, please contact John Sukkar, Head of Technology and Program Delivery, Fire and Flood Resilience.