Validation of latent and realised disaster resilience measurement across the globe. Insights from validating the Flood Resilience Measurement for Communities (FRMC) approach

Hochrainer-Stigler, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9929-8171, Mechler, R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2239-1578, Guimaraes, R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1754-9238, Keating, A., Chapagain, D., Velev, S., Hyun, J.H. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6960-9277, & Clercq-Roques, R. (2026). Validation of latent and realised disaster resilience measurement across the globe. Insights from validating the Flood Resilience Measurement for Communities (FRMC) approach. IIASA Report. Laxenburg, Austria: IIASA

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Abstract

Measuring community disaster resilience systematically remains a persistent challenge: resilience as a construct is latent, multidimensional, and context-dependent. The Flood Resilience Measurement for Communities (FRMC), developed and applied by the Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance (now Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance) across hundreds of communities in over 20 countries, addresses this gap through a validated, standardized framework organized around five community capitals and four resilience properties.
Drawing on an exceptionally large dataset combining household surveys, key informant interviews, focus groups, secondary data, multi-stakeholder assessments, and post-event studies, our validation confirms the framework's construct validity, internal consistency, and practical usefulness across diverse resilience and development contexts. Post-disaster event analyses show that higher baseline resilience is associated with reduced mortality and injury following floods. Qualitative evidence from 17 country teams further demonstrates the framework's capacity to help shift development practitioner thinking toward systems-oriented resilience approaches.
Few disaster and climate resilience measurement frameworks survive the full validation journey from theoretical construct via field-tested tool to statistical evaluation — fewer still do so at a global scale while remaining useful to the communities they serve. The FRMC is a rare exception, and its evolution into the multi-hazard Climate Resilience Measurement for Communities (CRMC) suggests the approach has become infrastructure rather than instrument: a shared foundation on which climate risk management and adaptation efforts can be built.

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