Understanding systems change through resilience measurement: global evidence from repeated community flood-resilience assessments

Resilience policy often looks through the lens of “absorptive–adaptive–transformative” change, but empirical evidence on how communities actually move between these states, and what reliably triggers these transitions, remains sparse. We address this gap with the use of repeated, standardized community flood-resilience measurements from the Flood Resilience Measurement for Communities (FRMC). The FRMC is a systems-based 5C–4R framework (human, social, physical, financial, natural capital; robustness, redundancy, resourcefulness, rapidity) which is designed to generate comparable evidence for action and which is validated in a large-scale global community application. 
We reorganize FRMC sources into an absorptive–adaptive–transformative ladder and analyse the change across two time periods, baseline and endline. As the FRMC is a multi-country dataset which spans distinct community types, we have the opportunity to combine (i) global patterns of capacity change, (ii) a typology of five empirically grounded community clusters (rural/urban, risk and vulnerability, capital endowments), and (iii) boosted regression trees model to identify dominant drivers, interactions, and recurrent inflection points.
There are three results which stand out. First, systems change follows a loose sequence. First improvements in shock-proofing and recovery performance lead to improvements in diversification and learning, which then in turn enable growth in governance and investment. Secondly, exposure shapes the pace and direction of change, that is low recurring flood impact behaves like a learning regime that strengthens absorptive and adaptive capacity, while chronic moderate to high exposure has a strong negative effect across all three capacities and most strongly impacts transformational capacity. Thirdly, threshold-and-handoff dynamics recur across clusters, specifically early warning and faster, more inclusive recovery efforts protect livelihoods and create the opportunity for adaptive capacity growth. Remittances and women’s secondary education show repeated positive effects and once governance awareness and participation cross mid-level thresholds, communities more consistently initiate structural shifts (e.g., re-planning, relocation, livelihood transitions). In high-capacity urban settings, we detect diminishing returns to further absorptive capacity investment and emerging trade-offs where rapid development is associated with reduction in natural capital, which are findings consistent with mal-adaptation risk.
The analysis shows how repeated resilience measurement can operationalise “systems change” as observable transitions with identifiable prerequisites, ceilings, and trade-offs. These can support interventions, secure core absorptive capacity functions, breach adaptive capacity thresholds via institutional/economic programs, then steer finance, education, and participation toward structural redesign.