Measuring Community Disaster Resilience in Serbia Using an Adapted BRIC Framework Grounded in DROP: Index Construction and Regional Disparities

Disaster resilience has become a key focus of risk reduction efforts, but measuring it remains complex due to differences in hazards, development paths, and data systems. This study modifies the Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities (BRIC) approach, based on the Disaster Resilience of Place (DROP) framework, to evaluate community resilience in Serbia and highlight regional differences. An initial list of 186 indicators was created from international BRIC studies and resilience research, then tailored to Serbian conditions through contextual review and data checks. Indicators were normalized using min–max scaling (0–1), and indicators with negative orientation were inverted to ensure that higher values indicate greater resilience. Scores for each dimension were calculated as equally weighted averages across six areas: social, economic, social capital, institutional, infrastructural, and environmental. The overall BRIC index was derived as the average of these dimension scores. Z-scores facilitated the classification of resilience levels and the comparison between regions. The results show clear regional disparities: in the complete model, Belgrade has the highest resilience (BRIC = 0.557), while Southern and Eastern Serbia have the lowest (BRIC = 0.414). Patterns across dimensions show that Belgrade excels in social and economic capacity but lags in environmental indicators; Vojvodina has the strongest institutional and infrastructural capacity; and Šumadija and Western Serbia perform best in environmental indicators. Correlation analysis revealed multicollinearity, leading to the removal of 14 redundant indicators and the refinement to a set of 57. After this reduction, regional rankings change, with Vojvodina (BRIC = 0.530) and Šumadija and Western Serbia (BRIC = 0.522) emerging as higher-resilience regions, while Southern and Eastern Serbia remain the least resilient (BRIC = 0.456). The adapted BRIC-DROP model offers a clear, locally relevant tool for mapping resilience and guiding targeted policies in Serbia, enabling region-specific efforts to address structural resilience gaps.