Does Social Cohesion Accelerate the Recovery Rate in Communities Impacted by Environmental Disasters in Puerto Rico? An Analysis of a Community Survey 

Abstract

Environmental disasters impact many communities yearly. These hazards might increase community vulnerabilities, which might worsen the impacts of future hazards on communities and make the recovery process complex. However, as a collective social resource, social cohesion is assumed to positively affect communities' resilience and ability to recover faster. This exploratory survey research, thus, aimed to understand the relationship between social cohesion and recovery rate. Data was gathered using questionnaires and analyzed by the principal component. Case studies were four communities in Puerto Rico, Corcovada, Cidra, Santa Domingo, and Rucio, affected by Hurricane Maria in 2017. The results showed that social cohesion extensively impacts community adaptation and recovery immediately after a disaster when communities are most in need. However, even though the level of social cohesion continues to increase, its effectiveness on recovery rate starts to fade out.

While other studies emphasized the impacts of social cohesion on recovery rate, the findings of this research provided a richer placed-based understanding of community responses to environmental disasters, which helps planners to more effectively integrate social factors in the planning for hazard mitigation and preparation pre-disaster to help communities better respond to environmental disasters.