Community resilience and multidimensional sustainability in rural Indonesia

Abstract

Community-based initiatives have become integral to rural development strategies in Indonesia, yet quantitative assessments of their multidimensional sustainability remain limited. This study evaluates the sustainability status of the Kampung Tangguh Lereng Gunung Kawi (KTL) program in East Java, utilizing Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) and Monte Carlo analysis. The assessment covers five core dimensions: environmental, economic, social, resilience, and technological-infrastructure. The results indicate that the KTL program is “fairly sustainable”, achieving an aggregate index of 60.32. The environmental dimension performed best (77.14, highly sustainable), driven by effective waste management and agroforestry practices. The social (67.69) and economic (66.12) dimensions were classified as fairly sustainable. However, the resilience (47.12) and technological-infrastructure (43.55) dimensions were found to be less sustainable, constrained by inadequate disaster preparedness and limited physical access. Statistical validation confirmed the model's high accuracy, with stress values below 0.25 and coefficient of determination (R2) values exceeding 0.92 across all dimensions. Leverage analysis identified key sensitive attributes, specifically waste management, household income, disaster prevention, and road access, as critical intervention points. The study concludes that while KTL demonstrates strong ecological foundations, strategic policy interventions focusing on infrastructure development and disaster risk management are essential to enhance long-term community resilience.