Advancement Through Research
The study was conducted to understand the extent to which flood experience correlated with the respondents’ views about their community bonding. The data were taken from the flood victims by using a semi-structured interview schedule. Multiple regression analysis was run to know the impact of material loss and psychological trauma on flood victims’ perceived community bonding, controlling for other factors such as annual income, evacuation experience, home-stability and perceived fairness in aid distribution. Spearman’s rho was employed to see the direct relationship between demographic characteristics of the respondents, flood experience, home-stability, fairness in aid distribution, period of return to home, and post-flood community cohesion. Results of both the analysis revealed that material loss and psychological trauma experience came out as strong predictors of victims’ views about their community cohesion. The other predictors were perceived fairness in the distribution of disaster aid, period of return to home, educational level and annual income of the respondents. The study showed that material loss, psychological trauma experience and period of return to home have negatively impacted the victims’ views about their community bonding. Our study confirms the past research that disasters like flood cause the loss of communality and affect the communal bonds.
Floods, Flood Experience, Flood Victims’ Perceptions, Community Cohesion, Pakistan
