The Settlement Resilient Assessment Framework (SRAF) as a Tool for Enhancing Settlement Resilience in Kwazulu-Natal

Abstract

The April 2022 floods in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, exposed deep systemic vulnerabilities in human settlements, infrastructure, and governance systems. In response, the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), in partnership with the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), initiated the KwaZulu-Natal Programme of Action for Planning Resilient Human Settlements. This paper synthesises findings and methodological insights from the application of the Sustainable Resilient Assessment Framework (SRAF), a diagnostic and planning tool developed to evaluate settlement resilience across five key themes: social, environmental, governance, physical, and spatial. The SRAF was piloted in five case study settlements, Hopewell,
Edendale, Umdloti, Dassenhoek, and Dakota Beach through a mixed methods approach combining focus group discussions, municipal stakeholder interviews, field observations, and participatory workshops. Findings reveal differentiated vulnerabilities across settlement types, with both governance coordination gaps and community-level adaptive capacities shaping resilience outcomes. The paper contributes methodologically by operationalising resilience assessment into measurable outcome indicators and conceptually by advancing a holistic settlement-level lens for disaster risk reduction (DRR)
in the South African context.