Capability maturity model for assessing flood resilience capabilities of the built environment

Disasters often result in severe socio-economic losses, although there is significant progress in dealing with the social aspect, economic aspect is addressed relatively insufficiently. Therefore, the capabilities of organisations in managing disasters need to be improved, and there should be a way of assessing these capabilities. Hence, this study used capability maturity model (CMM) methodology to develop an assessment method that identifies the built environment flood resilience capabilities of micro, small and medium-sized businesses (MSMEs).Towards achieving the aim of the study, a conceptual model was developed using the capability areas identified from the literature. The model was then verified and refined by an expert forum. The conceptual model was further improved in case studies, applied in case organisations and after that validated; this resulted in the final model. This study identified 19 capability areas for enhancing built environment flood resilience and developed a capability maturity model that contains maturity level definitions ranging from level 1 (Ad hoc) to level 5 (Optimising).The outcome of this study provides both theoretical and practical contributions to knowledge. Among the theoretical contributions are the identified and verified built environment flood resilience capability areas for MSMEs. The capability areas can be adopted for use in subsequent studies. Also, the application of capability maturity modelling (CMM) in disaster resilience of the built environment is novel, this has expanded the boundary of CMM application. The practical contributions of the study include the identified capability areas, the capability level definitions and the capability maturity model for profiling MSMEs and benchmarking the capabilities of businesses for built environment flood resilience. The model indicates what needs to be carried out to achieve a higher capability maturity level for flood resilience.