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Individual resilience is a well‐established concept within the field of psychology. However, community resilience is an emerging field of study particularly within the context of natural disasters and other adversities. This article reports a qualitative study related to community resilience in a rural Australian town. This particular community was affected by a series of flood events in 2010/2011, one of which necessitated the total evacuation of the entire town. The results from the study highlighted concepts associated with community resilience including: social connectedness, optimistic acceptance, learning tolerance and patience, and learning from the past for the future. We conclude that social capital forms a vital part of community resilience, and although resilience is tested only during times of adversity, social capital needs to be developed well prior to the anticipation of natural disasters.
Madsen et al. (Wed,) studied this question.