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The purpose of this paper is to discuss the advantages and limitations of the implementation of a community-based method in post-disaster housing reconstruction.

The research was based on multiple case studies in the implementation of a community-based post-disaster housing reconstruction project (CPHRP) in Indonesia. Data were gathered by conducting semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire survey.

The research reveals 22 advantages of a CPHRP. Four advantages can be categorised as highly significant. They are create sense of ownership, fit to local culture/customs/wisdom, build beneficiaries’ confidence and minimize corruption. There are some advantages that cannot be delivered if the housing reconstruction is conducted using a contractor-based approach. It was also found that psychological advantages are more dominant than the physical advantages. Despite its numerous advantages, CPHRP has limitations. First, it requires a long pre-construction process and, second, there is a limitation with regard to the capacity of implementer and there are limitations within the community itself.

This paper is very specific because it attempts to discover the advantages and limitations of a CPHRP.

Construction industry and the built environment professions play an important role in contributing to society’s improved resilience. It is therefore important to improve their knowledgebase to strengthen their capacities. This paper aims to identify gaps in the knowledgebase of construction professionals that are undermining their ability to contribute to the development of a more disaster resilient society. The paper also provides a series of recommendations to key actors in the built environment on how to more effectively mainstream disaster resilience in the construction process.

The paper reports the findings of 87 stakeholder interviews with: national and local government organisations; the community; non-governmental organisations, international non-governmental organisation and other international agencies; academia and research organisations; and the private sector, which were supplemented by a comprehensive analysis of key policies related to disaster resilience and management. The findings were validated using focus group discussions that were conducted as part of six organised stakeholder workshops.

The primary and secondary data generated a long list of needs and skills. Finally, the identified needs and skills were combined “like-for-like” to produce broader knowledge gaps. Some of the key knowledge gaps identified are: governance, legal frameworks and compliance; business continuity management; disaster response; contracts and procurement; resilience technologies, engineering and infrastructure; knowledge management; social and cultural awareness; sustainability and resilience; ethics and human rights; innovative financing mechanisms; multi stakeholder approach, inclusion and empowerment; post disaster project management; and multi hazard risk assessment. The study also identifies a series of recommendations to key actors in the built environment on how to more effectively mainstream disaster resilience in the construction process. The recommendations are set out in five key themes: education, policy, practice, research and cross-cutting.

This study is part of an EU funded research project that is seeking to develop innovative and timely professional education that will update the knowledge and skills of construction professionals in the industry and enable them to contribute more effectively to disaster resilience building efforts.

The paper provides an extensive analysis of the gaps in the knowledgebase of construction professionals that are undermining their ability to contribute to the development of a more disaster resilient society. Accordingly, the paper recommends major changes in construction education, research, policy and practice with respect to mainstreaming disaster resilience within the construction process.

Project-based industries face major challenges in controlling project cost and completing within the budget. This is a critical issue as it often connects to the main objectives of any project. However, accurate estimation at the beginning of the project is difficult. Scholars argue that project complexity is a major contributor to cost estimation inaccuracies. Therefore, recognising the priorities of acknowledging complexity dimensions in cost estimation across similar industries is beneficial in identifying effective practices to reduce cost implications. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to identify the level of importance given to different complexity dimensions in cost estimation and to recognise best practices to improve cost estimation accuracy.

An online questionnaire survey was conducted among professionals including estimators, project managers, and quantity surveyors to rank the identified complexity dimensions based on their impacts in cost estimation accuracy. Besides, in-depth interviews were conducted among experts and practitioners from different industries, in order to extract effective practices to improve the cost estimation process of complex projects.

Study results show that risk, project and product size, and time frame are the high-impact complexity dimensions on cost estimation, which need more attention in reducing unforeseen cost implications. Moreover, study suggests that implementing a knowledge sharing system will be beneficial to acquire reliable and adequate information for cost estimation. Further, appropriate staffing, network enhancement, risk management, and circumspect estimation are some of the suggestions to improve cost estimation of complex projects.

The study finally provides suggestions to improve cost estimation in complex projects. Further, the results are expected to be beneficial to learn lessons from different industries and to exchange best practices.

After tsunami 2004, it was estimated that more than 98,000 permanent houses had to be rebuilt. However, ten years on, as communities, are they satisfied in their new homes? What are the indicators affecting the long-term satisfaction of resettled communities in relation to their new permanent houses. The purpose of this paper is to qualitatively evaluate the level of long-term satisfaction of two tsunami affected resettled communities in Sri Lanka in a bid to identify the indicators affecting the long-term satisfaction of post disaster resettled communities in relation to permanent housing.

In addition to the thorough literature review conducted to evaluate the state of the art in the subject area, a series of interviews were conducted with experts and tsunami affected communities in Sri Lanka to gather primary data for this research. The literature review is used to establish the initial list of indicators of long-term satisfaction of resettlements. The expert interviews and the community interviews were used to verify and refine the initially identified indicators.

A sustainable resettlement programme is just not merely reconstruction of a set of houses. A resettlement programme should re-establish the socio-economic and cultural life of people. Reconstruction of a house does not solve the housing issue; it is vital to look in to the indicators which can convert a house into a home and the surrounding into a neighbourhood.

This paper makes a significant contribution in terms of identifying indicators affecting the long-term community satisfaction with resettlement programmes taking into account economic, social and cultural factors with a special emphasis on post tsunami resettlements in Sri Lanka.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the critical success factors (CSFs) of community‐based post‐disaster housing reconstruction projects (CPHRP) during the pre‐construction stage.

An extensive literature review and interviews were undertaken to establish selected factors contributing to the success of community‐based post disaster housing reconstruction projects. Following this, a questionnaire survey was administered to key stakeholders in order to perceive their view on CSFs of CPHRP. Data were analysed by deploying statistical software.

It was found that 12 factors are considered to be the CSFs: transparency and accountability, appropriate reconstruction policy/strategy, an understanding of the community‐based method, gathering trust from the community, facilitator capacity, good coordination and communication, sufficient funding availability, implementer capacity, having a significant level of community participation/control, government support, involvement of all community members, and successful beneficiary identification.

The establishment of CSFs in CPHRP helps key stakeholders to identify factors that must exist and go well during pre‐construction of CPHRP, in order to ensure the success of the programme.

The paper is very specific as it attempts to discover the CSFs of CPHRP during the pre‐construction stage.

While the top-down approach to design and implement post-disaster resettlement programmes are often influenced by spatial factors such as land availability and access to infrastructure facilities, failure to recognise socio-economic and cultural sensitivities of resettling communities have been noted as a common reason for unsuccessful resettlement programmes. Since these socio-economic and political issues are not mutually exclusive from spatial factors, the aim of this research is to develop a framework to assist the design and implementation of better post-disaster resettlement programmes through better coordination between spatial and socio-economic/cultural factors.

An initial theoretical framework was developed through a comprehensive literature review followed by a validation through a case study approach.

During the theoretical framework development, the differentiating priorities of policy maker's viewpoint and resettling community's viewpoints have been established as key theoretical constructs, within the emergency, transitional, and potential development phases of post-disaster resettlement programmes. Further, spatial analysis has been identified as an effective technique that can be used to investigate the interdependencies between the spatial, socio-economic and cultural factors within the post-disaster resettlement programmes. The case study findings confirmed that spatial analysis indeed can be used effectively to evaluate the above mentioned interdependencies within the context of post-debris flow event disaster resettlement programmes.

It is expected that the developed framework can be used by authorities and policy makers who are designing and implementing resettlement programmes to evaluate how the spatial design of the programme can be used to minimise socio-economic and cultural issues of settling communities.