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The purpose of this research is to examine why communities facing the same disaster recover differentially and determine pathways to successful disaster recovery in the research setting of New Orleans neighborhoods affected by Hurricane Katrina. While previous studies suggest that there are a variety of pathways to recovery, a broader cross-case comparison is necessary to generalize these pathways into a recovery framework. Specifically, this study seeks to determine what pre-disaster and post-disaster causal factors, alone or in combination, were important to recovery following Hurricane Katrina.

This paper presents a cross-case comparative study of neighborhood-level recovery. Based on prior work, which used the Delphi method to determine hypothesized causal factors and indicators of recovery, data was collected through publically available sources, including the US Census, the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center and previously completed studies for 18 damaged neighborhoods. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis was used due to its ability to analyze both quantitative and qualitative data for smaller case studies.

The results show that there are multiple pathways combining pre-disaster community factors and post-disaster actions that led to recovery, as measured by population return. For example, economic capacity is nearly sufficient for recovery, but a combination of low social vulnerability, post-disaster community participation, a high proportion of pre-World War II housing stock and high amounts of post-disaster funds also led to recovery.

This research uses a novel method to link pre-disaster measures of resilience and vulnerability to recovery outcomes and, through cross-case comparison, generates results that will enable researchers to develop a theory of sustainable community recovery.

This paper aims to reveal the philanthropy landscape processes for dealing with disasters and examine the influence of lean thinking in managing philanthropy for disasters. It sought to leverage continuous improvement and maximise disaster response and humanitarian logistics efficiency.

A sequential quantitative, qualitative research methods strategy was utilised involving data collection with literary analysis and two sets of online surveys with 212 NGO staff members in Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe. In addition, in-depth key informant interviews were conducted with 23 staff members at various management levels from these countries.

The study found that lean thinking had a positive, statistically valid influence at a 95% confidence level. Community incorporation, government support and collaboration with other philanthropic organisations were critical success factors. When lean thinking tools were applied (any tools), philanthropic organisations experienced waste reduction and value addition, where waste reduction accounted for 67% variation, and value-addition accounted for 58%, respectively. These were the same benefits experienced in other industries, thus, justifying lean thinking's applicability in the non-profit sector. Lean was most helpful about the communication and duplication of efforts challenges humanitarian or philanthropic organisations face when responding to a disaster.

The study equips leaders and philanthropic organisations with suggestions to manage and respond to disasters in a lean and effective manner. The study helps philanthropy leaders rethink their funding and response models to pursue lean policies catering to humanitarian organisations and the communities they serve.

The study closes significant gaps in the literature and practice by adopting a multi-sectoral lens that borrows from business and manufacturing tools into a non-profit context. It enables documentation of processes and logistical management by philanthropy organisations for continuous improvement and elimination of waste to ensure efficiency in the philanthropic role of alleviating the impact of disasters. The study also affirms the need for philanthropic organisations to incorporate community feedback, use lean tools to collaborate with other responding organisations and work closely with the local authorities to fulfil the government's supportive role: the primary source and executor in disaster response.

One of the most significant concerns of disaster management is that community at large is reluctant to initiate pre‐disaster measures at the individual level. Disaster education to schoolchildren offers the most vital answer to this grave concern. The objective of this study is to identify the factors which enhance students' awareness and promote the actual action for disaster reduction.

This study is based on a questionnaire survey in six selected schools of Kathmandu, Nepal. Different awareness levels have been established to identify effective educational factors at each level. The analysis showed the way to implement the education program.

Results showed that current school disaster education – which is based on lectures – can raise risk perception, but it cannot enable students to know the importance of pre‐disaster measures and to take actual action for disaster reduction. Self‐education is effective for realizing the importance of implementing measures. Community plays the essential role for promoting students' actual actions for disaster reduction. Future disaster education in school should be active learning for students. Continuous community involvement is the most important factor for school disaster education.

This study focuses on the direction of disaster education for schoolchildren. Specific cases of the education should be customized, based on the results of this study.

The study findings are of significant importance for school teachers or education department while designing the curriculum for disaster education.

The findings and recommendations are field‐tested in Nepal and hence offer higher possibilities of adaptation, particularly in developing countries.

This paper attempts to evaluate the current collaborative model of disaster management initiated by the Indonesian Government at the regional level. The paper aims at providing recommendations for a more functional model of local communities' resilience by promoting the synergy of roles among the community, industry and local government.

To achieve the study objective, the authors conducted the qualitative approach. The study used The Hyogo Framework to Action (HFA) 2000–2015 disaster management approach. The HFA approach contains substances of disaster management guidelines on social, economic and environmental aspects, as well as the strategies for implementing the guidelines.

The study's findings have indicated that substandard institutions can hamper collaborative processes and lower the level of community resilience. A collaborative model can appropriately operate when the formal institution plays its role as the central coordinator and ensures that transparency, decision-making and representation are met. Furthermore, the community and formal educational institutions are essentials as the foundation of building community resilience.

This study was limited to a case study in an Indonesian popular tourist destination. Hence, it could be extended by conducting comparative studies with other destinations in developing countries to explore their disaster management and the government involvement in each respective countries.

This study was limited to a case study in an Indonesian popular tourist destination. Hence, it could be extended by conducting comparative studies with other destinations in developing countries to explore their disaster management and government involvement in each respective country.

In this paper, the authors propose a novel approach to improve the current disaster management model. The proposed approach focuses on designing an institutional model for tourism destinations' disaster management, where the stakeholders are less-functional in working collaboratively. The study findings suggest that educational institutions and disaster communities must take the mediator role in bridging knowledge transfer among the government, the community and the tourism industry.

Business continuity and disaster recovery are directly associated frameworks which guarantee the continued operations of organisations after a disaster has occurred. Thus, researchers have continued to investigate best practices in this area. It is in this vein that the authors of this study seek to draw attention to what pertains in Ghana and what role the government can play to improve the situation. The purpose of this study is to explore some of the disasters which have been suffered by businesses in Ghana as well as the causes, effects and lessons learnt. The study will also look at business continuity and disaster recovery measures that could have been implemented in the examples provided.

The study follows a literature review approach by reviewing secondary data on both man-made and natural disasters that have affected Ghana in the past decade through the review of literature.

The comprehensive study of the selected disasters indicated the presence of business continuity and disaster recovery measures in some formal institutions; however, the informal sector appeared to have minimal provision for handling disasters.

The authors were limited to the use of the account from the resources used since this study relied on secondary data.

The study indicates that businesses in Ghana must implement business continuity and disaster recovery plans to protect business operations in the event of a disaster.

The study has not been previously published in any other journal. Secondary data for carrying out the study were obtained from other publications including online media platforms in Ghana.

The purpose of this study is to identify the preparedness of disaster mitigation agency officers in both urban and rural areas as high vulnerability zones in Aceh, Indonesia, in dealing with disasters.

This cross-sectional study adopted a conceptual framework from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and United Nations of Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)/International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) (LIPI-UNESCO/ISDR, 2006), explaining the study of community preparedness in anticipating earthquake and tsunami disasters. The framework of the study consists of five disaster preparedness parameters, namely, knowledge and attitude to face disasters, policies and guidelines, emergency response plans, disaster early warning systems and mobilization of resources. This conceptual framework was developed after the 2004 tsunami through an analysis study in the three provinces in Indonesia (Aceh, Padang and Bengkulu) experiencing earthquakes and tsunamis. This conceptual framework serves as a guideline and is in line with the objective of the regional disaster management Agency to reduce disaster risk through increasing community preparedness, especially providers or officers in anticipating disasters.

There was a significant difference in disaster preparedness among officers from the urban and rural areas. The area size, location accessibility, the communication network and disaster detection and warning facilities could associate with the results.

The respondents were selected from only two districts in Aceh Province, Indonesia, which are vulnerable to disasters. The study only identifies the disaster preparedness among disaster management agency officers (DMAOs) adopted from LIPI-UNESCO/ISDR about community preparedness in anticipating disasters particularly tsunami and earthquake. Therefore, the results of this study may have limited generalizability to other areas in Indonesia and beyond.

The results of this study could possibly serve as recommendations for policymakers and disaster management agencies, particularly in rural areas to prepare contingency plans that involve both internal and external institutions to arrange the regulations related to community-based emergency response plans and disaster early warning systems. Such programs of education, training and disaster drill needed to be in place and conducted regularly for the officers in a rural area. Finally, the other sub-scales showed no difference in disaster preparedness, however, collaboration and support to each other in disaster risk reduction plan by improving the capacity building, policy enhancement and disaster management guidelines are required. Also, attempts to optimize logistics adequacy, budget allocations and disaster preparedness education and training for both DMAOs are strongly recommended through the lens of the study. The results of the study might useful for further research that could be developed based on this current study.

The emergency response plans and disaster early warning systems were significantly different between the rural and urban officers in disaster preparedness. Attending disaster management programs, experiences in responding to disasters and the availability of facilities and funds could be considered in ascertaining the preparedness of officers to deal with disasters.

The literature was reviewed to locate the most relevant social-psychology theories, factors, and instruments in order to measure New York State resident attitudes and social norms (SNs) concerning their intent to evacuate Hurricane Irene in the summer of 2011. The purpose of this paper is to develop a model which could be generalized to improve social policy determination for natural disaster preparation.

A post-positivist ideology was employed, quantitative data were collected from an online survey (nominal, binary, interval, and ratio), and inferential statistical techniques were applied to test theory-deductive hypotheses (Strang, 2013b). Since the questions for each hypothesized factor were customized using a pilot for this study, exploratory factor analysis were conducted to ensure the item validity and reliabilities were compared to a priori benchmarks (Gill et al., 2010). Correlation analysis along with logistic and multiple regression were applied to test the hypothesis at the 95 percent confidence level.

A statistically significant model was developed using correlation, stepwise regression, ordinary least squares regression, and logistic regression. Only two composite factors were needed to capture 55.4 percent of the variance for behavioral intent (BI) to evacuate. The model predicted 43.9 percent of the evacuation decisions, with 13.3 percent undecided, leaving 42.8 incorrectly classified), using logistic regression (n=401 surveyed participants).

Municipal planners can use this information by creating surveys and collecting BI indicators from citizens, during risk planning, in advance of a natural disaster. The concepts could also apply to man-made disasters. Planners can use the results from these surveys to predict the overall likelihood that residents with home equity (e.g. home owners) intend to leave when given a public evacuation order.

Once municipal planners know the indicators for personal attitudes (PAs) (in particular) and SNs, they could sort these by region, to identify areas where the PAs were too low. Then additional evacuation preparation efforts can be focussed on those regions. According to these findings, the emphasis must be focussed on a PA basis, describing the extreme negative impacts of previous disasters, rather than using credible spokespersons, to persuade individuals to leave.

A new model was created with a “near miss disaster” severity factor as an extension to the theory of reasoned action.

An investigation of very young children’s perceptions of a natural disaster, a tornado, used a stratified random sample of 40 children, aged 4-5 years, from a population of 108 in ten classes. The study also investigated a research protocol for ascertaining prior knowledge through children’s responses: physical representation, drawing responses, and retelling of personal stories through dictating captions for drawings. Two data sets were taken soon after the tornado. The children physically represented what happens in a tornado and how one takes shelter. Drawings increased in complexity by the second data set. Children’s stories included personal experiences: houses lost or damaged, being scared, friends missing, and wanting a significant other. Researchers can use a variety of methods to investigate very young children’s prior knowledge. An implication is that disaster education has a role in early social studies education promoting meaningful understanding by children of dangers posed, protecting oneself, and coping with the aftermath. Such a role is increasingly important as recent major U.S. disasters have impacted large numbers of citizens including our very young students. Further research especially with very young children in the area of disaster and hazards education is warranted in the field of social studies education.

The purpose of this study is to draw lessons for logistics management in humanitarian disasters, using the earthquake in Haiti as a case study. In Haiti, there were problems with the logistical response. This study investigates the humanitarian logistics challenges faced by various stakeholders in Haiti during the disaster-relief operations.

In this exploratory case study, the central methodology used was data triangulation. Data triangulation involved interviews with respondents grouped into three categories, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the military establishment and the governmental agencies. Prominence is given to the common themes expressed by each group. These common themes are then compared to the themes of other groups to identify opportunities and problems for future disaster relief operations.

The study indicates that there is a clear gap in terms of how the humanitarian efforts were coordinated between different actors. Lack of civil–military cooperation and coordination was one of the findings from the interviews, and many of the resources and initiatives were overlapping or redundant. Timeliness and efficiency need to be at the forefront of all planning and would result in more saved lives and reduced human suffering. The key goal of humanitarian logistics stipulates is to form connections and relationships, which was well illustrated through the informants' interviews. It was found that organizing different stakeholders/actors to work together by sharing processes and distribution channels demands a vision that goes beyond logistics management. Government agencies, the military establishment, NGOs, locals and victims need to collaborate to create a synergy in generating solutions that are tailored to the shock of the disaster in the first place.

The current study relies on a single case study approach as disaster scenarios are unique in terms of their impact, magnitude, timing and location. Despite these limitations, this study provides a detailed account of the logistical challenges in dealing with the disaster that took place in Haiti. The logistics-related lessons learned from this case study should be carefully applied in other settings, taken into consideration contextual differences.

One important aspect of measuring efficiency for any commercial logistics system is key performance indicators (KPIs) that indicate how well the firm is doing in managing its inbound and outbound operations. From a practical standpoint, the Haiti case raised a challenging concern with regard to how to measure the performance of humanitarian disaster logistics. This is a starting point to understand the dynamics of disaster system efficiency and logistics interplay and offers a few lessons to improve the resource availability in the case of future emergencies.

This study lays the groundwork for future researchers to explore and debrief on the topic once disaster relief draws to a close and time has allowed logisticians and relief workers to analyze the response mechanisms used in disasters.

This study aims to reframe the common concept of post-disaster reconstruction “building back better”, especially in the context of post-disaster housing design.

An Aceh post-tsunami housing reconstruction project is used as a case study with qualitative methodology through in-depth interviews of selected respondents.

The study findings have shown that the term “building back better” is not a familiar term for housing recipients. Whichever different personal background post-disaster survivors come from, whether they are housewife, civil servant, fisherman, university student, businessman or a professional, none have ever heard this phrase. All found it hard to understand the term. This study argues that the “building back better” concept is good in policy but not working in practice. As a result, housing recipients not only were dissatisfied with their new houses but also found that the new housing configurations profoundly altered their traditional way of life. In light of these findings, the paper argues that the concept of “building back better” needs to be reframed to take account of the cultural individual and communal needs and wants of post-disaster survivors.

This study discusses only one aspect of post-disaster reconstruction that is the design of housing reconstruction.

Results from this study provide a practical contribution for reconstruction actors especially designers, architects and planners. It helps them to reconsider the common concepts they have used for post-disaster reconstruction processes particularly in designing housing reconstruction projects.

This study focuses on the question of how tsunami survivors in Aceh reacted to the design of their new post-tsunami houses and what they had done themselves to make their homes a better and nicer place to live within their own cultural needs. This study also sought to understand what motivated the opinions the respondents had about the design of housing reconstruction after the tsunami in Aceh generally. In addition, the study investigated whether survivors knew the phrase and the credo of “building back better” in a post-disaster context.