Community Resilience: An Indicator of Social Sustainability

Change is a constant force, in nature and in society. Research suggests that resilience pertains to the ability of a system to sustain itself through change via adaptation and occasional transformation. This article is based on the premises that communities can develop resilience by actively building and engaging the capacity to thrive in an environment characterized by change, and that community resilience is an important indicator of social sustainability. Community resilience, as defined herein, is the existence, development, and engagement of community resources by community members to thrive in an environment characterized by change, uncertainty, unpredictability, and surprise. The U.S. Roundtable on Sustainable Forests commissioned a research project to develop a theoretically and empirically based definition of community resilience as well as an associated measurement instrument. In this article, the research is presented, the emergent definition and dimensions of community resilience are posited, and the Community Resilience Self Assessment is introduced.