Measuring post-disaster resilience perception in small island: Lessons from 2018 Lombok Island earthquakes in Indonesia

Disasters expose small islands to heightened risks, which their unique natural conditions and limited economic capabilities further amplify. Malaka Village, located on Lombok Island in West Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia, experienced several destructive sequential earthquakes in 2018, providing valuable lessons four years later. A community-based quantitative household survey measures the local community's perceptions of resilience and their correlation with recovery efforts. Local volunteers participated in measuring their community using the local language based on a designed stratified sampling quantitative study employing a five-component framework. This framework assessed access to basic services, regulations and policies in disaster management, prevention and mitigation, emergency preparedness, and recovery readiness. The study finds that Malaka Village is more resilient four years after the 2018 earthquakes, despite a perceived hamlet resilience of 69.9% and a perceived local government resilience of 59.3%. Perceived family or household resilience is higher at 75.6%, which is also concerning, as a quarter of people do not think they are ready to face another disaster. This study recommends ten actions to improve community resilience and identifies the key lessons to enhance community resilience, including access to basic services, understanding disaster risk, and housing recovery capacity.