Climate Resilience Index for Housing and Settlements (IRECLIVA): Application in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Abstract

The increasing exposure of informal urban settlements to climate-related hazards highlights the need for reliable tools to assess community resilience and support adaptation planning. This study developed and validated the Climate Resilience Index for Housing and Settlements (IRECLIVA), a multidimensional framework designed to evaluate climate resilience in vulnerable urban communities. The methodology combines objective expert-based assessments with community perception data organized into five dimensions: housing and infrastructure, natural environment, community and governance, economy and insurance, and health and well-being. The index was applied in nine informal settlements in Greater Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, using field checklists, household surveys (n = 198), and statistical validation procedures, including Cronbach’s alpha and Cohen’s kappa coefficients. The results demonstrated acceptable to excellent internal consistency across dimensions and substantial to almost perfect inter-rater agreement among evaluators. Resilience assessment showed that four settlements exhibited low resilience and five medium resilience, with the most critical deficiencies related to housing quality, infrastructure conditions, environmental exposure, and limited adaptive capacities. These findings indicate that IRECLIVA provides a reliable and practical framework for identifying resilience gaps, prioritizing adaptation measures, and supporting evidence-based urban planning. Further applications in different geographic and socio-economic contexts are recommended to assess the broader transferability and scalability of the index.