Search results

The purpose of this paper is to provide a nuanced understanding of the complex factors driving the decision of commercial property owners (investors and developers) to stay and rebuild after a major disaster. The study examines what happens in the post-disaster rebuild of a central business district (CBD) from the perspective of commercial property owners in Christchurch, New Zealand.

An interpretive approach is adopted to understand what it takes to rebuild in a post-disaster environment through the lens and experiences of property owners. The study has observed the significant physical changes that have occurred in the Christchurch CBD as a result of the earthquakes. For this study, qualitative data were obtained through semi-structured interviews from 20 purposively identified property owners rebuilding the Christchurch CBD. The interview findings were subjected to a thematic analysis used to provide a factual way of characterising the viewpoints of those interviewed.

The findings have highlighted that the decision-making behaviour of property owners in Christchurch’s CBD post-disaster rebuild has been driven significantly by an emotional attachments to people and place.

The global trend in increasing destruction from natural disasters has raised the need for more efficient and effective post-disaster responses and activities. The paper has developed a knowledge base required to inform public policy and advice all those involved in the rebuilding of cities after a major disaster.

This paper contributes to the property literature and debates about the decision-making behaviour of commercial property owners who are engaged in rebuilding after a major natural disaster. The qualitative methodology used presents a novel approach to property research. The findings challenge the underlying premises of much of the mainstream property literature on normative investment behaviour and decision making.

After the catastrophic 2009 bushfires in the state of Victoria, Australia, the State Government provided information and advice, short-term and temporary accommodation as well as financial assistance to bushfire-affected communities. A tension developed between quickly rebuilding housing and re-establishing known social and economic networks versus a slower and more deliberative process that focuses on long-term community outcomes. Whilst there was a widespread assumption that quick rebuilding would be beneficial, resulting in immediate pressure to do so, it became evident that many people were not prepared to, or even did not want to rebuild. Thus it became important to provide time and support for people to consider their options away from the immediate pressures to rebuild that are often inherent in post-disaster recovery processes. This became known as “holding the space” and included the introduction of interim supports such as building temporary villages and other supports which enable people to achieve appropriate interim accommodation without having to rebuild immediately. However, even two years after the bushfires a significant proportion of people remained undecided whether they wanted to rebuild or not. The post-bushfire experience pointed to a number of lessons including the importance of appropriate timing of post-disaster activities, careful targeting of financial assistance, need for developing better and lower cost interim housing options and pre-impact planning. Given the complex nature of rebuilding following a disaster, design professionals should focus not just on the final house, but also look at housing options that blur the distinction between temporary and permanent. Their designs should be quick to build, offer a good quality of life, be affordable for most and be flexible in design for future use.

The purpose of this paper is to determine how post-disaster legislation can be used to support building back better (BBB) in the horizontal infrastructure sector (roading, water, wastewater and stormwater networks).

A case study approach was taken looking at the rebuild following the Canterbury earthquakes in New Zealand. Data were collected through document analysis and semi-structured open-ended interviews with members of the organization responsible for implementing the horizontal infrastructure rebuild.

The results showed that the post-disaster legislative actions taken in Christchurch were comparable to existing findings on post-disaster legislative best practices in developed countries. This study confirmed that post-disaster legislation is an effective mechanism to support BBB through enforcing BBB concepts such as risk reduction and better implementation, and facilitating the recovery process to improve efficiency.

It is recommended that this study is extended to conduct similar case studies in other countries to further explore legislative implications in different sectors as well as different legislative environments.

This paper makes a valuable contribution to existing research on how post-disaster legislation can be used to support BBB in the horizontal infrastructure sector. The findings also add to wider knowledge on the Canterbury earthquakes recovery process.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the role of livelihood assets, strategies and local social networks in disaster response and recovery in post-disaster setting of 2013 Kedarnath disaster (India).

It identifies post disaster macro-spaces of Mandakini river valley (India) using change detection analysis and secondary data. Within these macro-spaces, the micro spaces of livelihood and social capital were assessed by selecting two villages for case study.

Most important issues faced by communities were loss of lives, livelihoods and access to relief aid. A shift in economic base of families suffering loss of livelihoods was observed as they switched from pilgrimage-based to skill-based opportunities. Geographical location and isolation play a crucial role in recovery trajectory of villages by influencing the social capital.

The paper being case study based deals two of the worst-affected villages; livelihood strategies adopted and social network may be influenced by the “victim” status of villages and may not be generalized for each disaster-affected area.

Bridging and bonding networks were significant in geographically isolated places, while “linkages” were beneficial in bringing new livelihood opportunities. Need to enhance the role of social capital by institutional intervention in form of capacity building was required.

The study suggests focus on human capital-based livelihood diversification programs taking geographical location and disaster context into account.

The purpose of this paper is to synthesise critical success factors (CSFs) for advancing post-disaster infrastructure recovery and underpinning recovery authorities in decision making when facing future disasters.

The seismic recovery after the Canterbury (NZ) earthquake sequence in 2010-2011 was selected as a case study for identifying CSFs for an efficient recovery of infrastructure post-disaster. A combination of research approaches, including archival study, observations and semi-structured interviews were conducted for collecting data and evidences by engaging with participants involved at various tiers in the post-disaster recovery and reconstruction. The CSFs are evaluated and analysed by tracking the decision-making process, examining resultant consequences and foreseeing onwards challenges.

Six salient CSFs for strengthening infrastructure recovery management after disasters are identified. Furthermore, the study shows how each of these CSFs have been incorporated into the decision-making process in support of the post-disaster recovery and what difficulties encountered in the recovery process when implementing.

The proposed CSFs provide a future reference and guidance to be drawn on by decision makers when project-managing post-disaster recovery operations.

The value of the paper is that it bridges the gap between managerial contexts and technical aspects of post-disaster recovery process in an effort to rapidly and efficiently rebuild municipal infrastructure.

The purpose of the paper is to inform stakeholders involved in post‐disaster reconstruction how to incorporate Build Back Better (BBB) principles when implementing structural design improvements to achieve efficiency and effectiveness in the rebuilding process.

Literature review was used to establish BBB principles required for post‐disaster structural changes. The application of these principles was then tested in the Indian Ocean Tsunami reconstruction in Sri Lanka, and the Victorian Bushfires in Australia. Qualitative data were collected in each country by conducting interviews with stakeholders from governmental authorities, and non‐governmental and community‐level organisations who were directly involved in recovery activities along with other documentation. Results were compared to understand how/to what extent BBB principles were applied and their implications, to finally determine the applicability of these principles in different environments.

Proposed BBB principles for post‐disaster structural changes from literature were grouped under: building codes and regulations, cost and time, and quality. Principles such as multi‐hazard‐based building codes, education and support for communities, long‐term funding and quality assurance through inspections were applicable in both case studies. Experiences in Australia and Sri Lanka also presented a few extra principles to add practicality based on local contextualisation. These included avoiding high‐risk lands using buy‐back/land‐swap schemes, incentives to attract skilled builders, and the use of comfortable temporary accommodation to relieve time pressures.

The study does not look into detail at the administrative, regulative and social systems which contributed towards the inability of the built environment to withstand the respective hazards. A general understanding of these systems was gained and taken into consideration when analysing the results. The findings show that despite the differences found between Australia and Sri Lanka the relevance of the principles for structural improvements remained intact.

The government, engineers and building practitioners involved in reconstruction will benefit from learning from the experiences of others, and understanding how implementing structural changes can be done more successfully by applying BBB principles.

This research takes a unique look at how BBB principles drawn from international experiences can be incorporated when implementing structural changes in post‐disaster rebuilding to further improve the outcome.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the resourcing issues that concern the provision of resources required for reconstruction projects after a disaster and to enable them to be integrated into a holistic planning process.

Triangulation methodology is adopted in this paper including both quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative approach, namely statistic analysis with the aid of questionnaires and SPSS is employed to identify the key factors affecting resource availability in post‐disaster reconstruction situations. The qualitative semi‐structured interviews and desk reviews of government and media documents are conducted to further interpret outcomes in the questionnaire session.

Based on empirical research, the major finding of the paper is that in order to arrive at a resilient and sustainable built environment after a disaster, resourcing efforts should be made around four components – resourcing facilitator: legislation and policy; resourcing implementer: construction industry; resourcing platform: construction market; and resourcing access: transportation system.

The original part of this paper is in raising the importance of resourcing for achieving a resilient post‐disaster built environment, and in presenting a thorough overhaul of the resourcing components. The paper also offers a vision of comprehensive planning and preparedness to facilitate resourcing operations in post‐disaster reconstruction; pinpoints possible constraints inherent in post‐disaster resourcing environment; and provides a direction‐setting framework to achieve the vision with built environment resilience considerations incorporated.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss policy-relevant findings regarding strategies for mainstreaming gender in achieving sustainable post-disaster reconstruction (PDR).

An exploratory case study was used to explore the implementation of gender mainstreaming strategies and the link to sustainable PDR. The Bantul and Sleman regencies of Yogyakarta province provide a unique site for researching PDR as they are located in a region that is more strongly affected by earthquakes than nearly any other in Indonesia. Data were collected through interviews with 17 key stakeholders and 26 beneficiaries who were involved during and after the earthquake. To support the interview findings, surveys involving 50 policy makers and 150 beneficiaries were conducted. Content analysis and t-statistics were used in analyzing the data.

Gender mainstreaming strategies within sustainable reconstruction should incorporate strategies for protecting against gender vulnerabilities and for promoting gender capacities. Both are fundamental to the achievement of sustainable PDR.

The paper establishes comprehensive strategies for mainstreaming gender under three pillars (i.e. economic, social and environmental) of sustainable development. The findings benefit relevant policy makers by improving the policy performance of gender mainstreaming in the affected communities in enhancing sustainable PDR.

Self-recovery in post-disaster shelter is not the exception but the norm. Following earthquake, flood or storm, the majority of affected families will inevitably rebuild their homes themselves, using their own resources, but there is little support from the international community to encourage good safe building practice. While the communication of key messages about safer building has been carried out effectively in development contexts, it rarely forms a major part of humanitarian response programming. If the humanitarian shelter sector is committed to the principles of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), more can be done to support the process of safer reconstruction among self-rebuilders. This paper argues the case for the humanitarian community to link post-disaster shelter programming with the more developmental approach of communicating building safety to a much wider audience than just the most vulnerable beneficiaries. It proposes the shelter sector and the donor community direct more resources towards support for this process, which would augment the effectiveness and impact of a shelter response.

This paper argues that commercial entrepreneurial activities have social implications and can provide needed social spaces during the disaster recovery process, and that viewing commercial enterprises as socially valuable has implications for post-disaster public policy.

This paper discusses themes and concepts developed through in-depth interviews conducted in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Houston, Texas, after Hurricane Katrina. Particular case studies of the personal experiences of communities that recovered after Hurricane Katrina are utilized to highlight how commercial entrepreneurship creates and maintains social spaces where community members can share resources and connect during the recovery process.

Entrepreneurs need not have a specific social mission in order to make social contributions, and commercial entrepreneurship should create and maintain social spaces that are important for community recovery after disasters.

The social spaces that commercial entrepreneurs facilitate should be considered when designing and implementing public policy in the post-disaster context. Policies can often hinder recovery, and policymakers should instead establish clear regulatory regimes and allow for greater space for entrepreneurs to act.

This paper highlights the role entrepreneurs play in advancing social goals and purposes after disasters, specifically how commercial entrepreneurs can create and maintain social spaces where community members gather to discuss their challenges and strategies for disaster recovery. It highlights the extra-economic role of commercial entrepreneurs and discusses the implications for public policy based on this broadened conception of entrepreneurship.