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Natural disasters not only cause dilapidated buildings and damaged infrastructure but also delay crucial aid for those affected in the event of a disaster and post-disaster recovery. An institutionally well-managed post-disaster housing strategy provides opportunities for physical and mental healing of its occupant. The time requires occupiers to remain in the temporary housing varies with circumstances. This paper aims to review post-disaster housing scenarios in India in comparison to two Asian cases from Indonesia and Japan. The study focuses on understanding Indian post-disaster housing strategies through a comparative review.

The research selects coastal cities of Tamil Nadu state, where the post-disaster temporary shelter and rehabilitation was planned and implemented after the Tsunami in 2004. The Tsunami created havoc in Nagapattinam and Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu. Nagapattinam district reported 6,051 fatalities and many more homeless people. After the Tsunami, the government took measures to supply safe, secured and on-site shelter provisions. Surprisingly, many such shelters were never occupied. In many instances, people actually preferred to spend years in a temporary shelter rather occupying government housing. This paper evaluates such events and investigates India’s post-disaster shelter strategy against the derived best practices. This study is based on the sequential/logical reasoning and understanding of the facts. Discussions and findings from this study can be further generalised into a comprehensive policy discussion.

The paper finds that the manner of planning and design of post-disaster housing programmes influence medium- to long-term recovery of its occupant. A certain element of trade-off between implementation and quality of habitation results into compromises to achieving the desired outcome. When faced with socio-political, economic and financial constraints, the decision-makers are required to make trade-offs in deciding the manner and quantum of allocating resources. Coordination among these agencies is troublesome. It is true for all countries and there is no distinct answer to it. Public consultation and community participation in long-term rehabilitation are crucial to meet the aspiration of the local people.

The paper contributes in discussing a comparison of post-disaster housing rehabilitation between India and the two cases from Indonesia and Japan. As a review paper, the objective is to highlight the synthesis and overall understanding of post-disaster housing strategies from two cases and compare it with India.

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.

There is a need to understand resourcing issues when reconstructing the built environment in a post‐disaster situation. The purpose of this paper is to determine the resourcing difficulties that are likely to face the international practitioners in post‐disaster reconstruction by identifying and comparing the factors that affected resource availability following natural disasters in Indonesia and China respectively.

The research methodology included field‐based questionnaire surveys, semi‐structured interviews and observations. A comparative analysis was used to extract similarities and differences with regard to resourcing approaches in Indonesia and China.

Despite the different resourcing approaches adopted in Indonesia and China in their recovery from large‐scale disasters, there are common issues facing post‐disaster reconstruction stakeholders, including competence of the implementing agencies, capacity of transportation, governance and legislation, and market conditions. Specifically, community‐related housing features played a dominant role in donor‐driven resourcing practice in post‐Indian Ocean tsunami reconstruction in Indonesia, whereas factors related to project control and management primarily contributed to resourcing performance of Chinese reconstruction specialists following the Wenchuan earthquake.

To solve resourcing problems, countries need to create an enabling environment and build institutional capacity. The cross‐cultural comparative analysis encourages policy makers and practitioners to exchange experiences from recent recovery operations.

The paper illustrates the infrastructural and institutional weaknesses that hindered effective resource procurement during post‐disaster reconstruction in Indonesia and China. The research findings show common areas in need of improvement in other disaster prone countries, along with the issues to be addressed in the donor‐led or contractor‐led resourcing practice in the two studied countries.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance of post-disaster housing reconstruction projects, propose the conceptual living-transforming disaster relief shelter (LTFDR-shelter) approach where temporary shelter is incrementally transformed into a more permanent dwelling by using living technologies and investigate its applicability to provide sustainable post-disaster housing following natural-hazard-induced disasters.

A questionnaire survey with 120 household recipients of three Sri Lankan post-disaster housing projects was employed to explore how the post-disaster housing projects have performed against the occupants' expectations. Furthermore, the new proposed LTFDR-shelter conceptual approach's applicability to address the existing issues found in the study was investigated.

The paper evaluates and identifies the physical and technical, and socio-economic performance issues of post-disaster housing and discusses the applicability of the proposed LTFDR-shelter conceptual approach as an efficient tool to adequately improve the identified factors integrating three phases of relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction employing living technology.

Although the study's scope was limited to the occupant view of the performance of post-disaster housing in Sri Lanka, the findings and conceptual LTFDR-shelter approach could be of particular relevance to other developing countries affected by similar disasters. Further research is recommended to investigate and develop this concept in depth.

This study lays the conceptual foundation for a new theoretical approach in post-disaster housing, which encourages more interdisciplinary collaborations and empirical investigations that potentially enhance post-disaster housing performance and facilitates the application of living technology in the built environment.

The purpose of this study is to arrive at a conceptual roadmap that may be used to analyze the impacts of post-disaster relocation on a family’s dynamics and how this, in turn, affects their resilience to future disasters. Existing literature shows that the role of the family as a social unit is often overlooked in disaster research. Ultimately, this paper seeks to elevate the place of the family and its internal dynamics as a vital determinant of family resilience in a post-disaster relocation setting.

The study is a result of a systematic literature review of four interrelated topics, namely, families in disasters; post-disaster relocation; disaster resilience and family resilience.

The literature review resulted in an exploration of the experiences of families amidst post-disaster relocation. Such findings were linked towards potential impacts on family dynamics, which then resulted in the study’s proposed roadmap.

The study is a novel attempt at coming up with a conceptual framework that may guide future scholars in determining the effects of family dynamics on a family’s overall disaster resilience amid post-disaster relocation. It is hoped that the use of such a framework will guide policymakers in crafting institutional reforms that take into account family cohesion in disaster relocation efforts.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the types of contents shared through Facebook during different phases of disaster management.

The primary data of this study were collected using the qualitative method. To acquire the necessary data, researcher selected 50 Sri Lankan Facebook users who can read and understand Sinhala with more than 1,000 friends using the snowball sampling method. Selected Facebook users had to collect Facebook posts related to flood during two weeks time period. Data were collected until it reached data saturation point. The collected Facebook posts were transcribed and translated into English. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the Facebook posts.

The most prominent use of Facebook for disaster communication can be observed in, during and post-disaster phases. In the during-disaster phase, people used Facebook to share posts related to disaster warning, request for help or rescue, share information about rescue missions, share contact numbers of rescue teams, request donation items, coordinate aid distribution, ask for volunteer work and to provide feedback about the ongoing funding programs. In the post-disaster phase, people used Facebook to request volunteer help for cleaning, to provide feedback about the progress and to ask about donating cleaning products.

Findings of this study can be used by the government or authorized bodies to develop official social media channels, which would fulfill information requirements during disaster situations.

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.

Several post-disaster housing extension and modification studies have indicated that owner-driven modification behavior relates to socio-economic and livelihood factors. This study aims to clarify housing extension patterns and examine the relationships among spatial characteristics, sociocultural factors, livelihood factors and housing extensions. This research also highlights the implications of post-disaster housing design for indigenous communities.

An indigenous community case study was conducted using a literature review. Moreover, interview surveys and housing measurements were implemented based on purposive sampling to diversify interviewees’ backgrounds and the extent of housing extensions.

This study confirms that housing extensions are closely related to the number of household members and their associated functions and cultural and livelihood factors that were ignored during the design stage. Furthermore, the housing extension process was confirmed to match households’ economic recovery. A post-disaster housing implementation framework for the indigenous population is proposed.

This research only targeted one indigenous community with a limited number of interviewees and samples because of the connection with households.

The study’s proposed resilience post-disaster housing framework can be used to develop post-disaster housing design guidelines, which can benefit policymaking. The proposed participatory concept can be further adopted in future disaster risk-reduction programs.

This study uniquely focuses on the pre- and post-disaster housing layout and the livelihood of an indigenous community. It offers valuable insights for post-disaster reconstruction planners and practitioners.

The intervention of many different organizations during the post-disaster housing reconstructions could also influence the sustainability of the overall socio-ecology of the affected areas. Different approaches in design, selection of building materials and construction technologies deployed in pursuit of disaster resiliency may cause undesirable adverse circumstances to the surroundings, which escalate its susceptibility to future calamities. Therefore, this paper aims to identify relevant key indicators which interpret construction sustainability in a post-disaster housing reconstruction context, and to further investigate the dynamic interactions of these indicators on the socio-ecological system to achieve holistic sustainable post-disaster housing reconstructions.

Methodology was divided into three main stages. The first stage involved content analysis of related research materials, whereas the second stage was allocated for empirical data collection from case study and interview sessions. Data obtained from the first and second stage were then used to develop a causal loop diagram in the third stage to identify dynamic interrelationships between the indicators and the variables within a post-disaster reconstruction system.

From our results, the nexus of sustainability and disaster resilience is apparent and it is imperative to comprehend their dynamic interactions. The impacts of post-disaster reconstructions on the socio-ecological system are significant. Therefore, the adaptation of integrated sustainable construction approach in the housing reconstruction practice through system thinking will foster a holistic approach in the decision-making process and could reduce environmental damage. This also strengthens the interrelated socio-ecological systems, thus reinforcing disaster resilience in the built environment.

This research looks into the adaptation of integrated sustainable construction approach in the housing reconstruction practice through systems thinking approach. This will foster a holistic approach in the decision-making process and could reduce environmental damage. This also strengthens the interrelated socio-ecological systems, thus reinforcing disaster resilience in the built environment. This paper also looks into identifying relevant key indicators that interpret construction sustainability, which incorporate environmental, social and economic factors pertaining to the context of post-disaster housing reconstruction in Kuala Krai, Kelantan. The dynamic interrelationships and causal impacts between the indicators with other variables within the system were also established.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a basis for the construction professionals and stakeholders to understand the critical factors influencing resource availability in a post‐disaster situation. The study reported in this paper is part of ongoing research concerned with developing a methodology to improve the outcomes of resource availability for projects in post‐disaster environments. This study attempts to address the following questions: what factors impinge upon the availability of resources in a disaster recovery project and what are the common resource availability determinants across different recovery environments?

The method of analysis in this investigation is a comparative case study. The researchers took part in disaster field trips to Indonesia, China and Australia during their recovery from natural disasters. By using case studies and a triangulation method, critical factors that affected resource availability in the three examined countries were identified and compared.

A comparative analysis shows that specific cultural elements, the socio‐economic environment and the political agenda in the three countries influenced their resourcing problems and the solutions they adopted. Despite different resourcing approaches in the three cases, competence of construction professionals, and government response and intervention were identified as common determinants to resourcing disaster recovery projects.

The research findings contribute to the project management methodology to post‐disaster reconstruction.

From this research, decision makers and construction practitioners can have a clearer direction for improving their resourcing effort in a post‐disaster situation. This study provides a basis for the construction professionals and stakeholders to understand the critical factors influencing resource availability in a post‐disaster situation, with a view to enhancing their capability of managing disaster recovery projects.

A comparative analysis of three cases provides a multi‐perspective view of the resourcing issues in a post‐disaster situation. As many problems are faced in disaster recovery projects, resource availability intrinsically links to chronic conditions of vulnerability in existence in the broader social system prior to a disaster. The five aspects of resourcing discussed in the paper show the key areas of recovery planning in relation to resource availability.

In large and complex disaster recovery operations, the availability of resources is bound to be limited. Identified resourcing problems are likely to be universal and can be anticipated and pre‐planned for, irrespective of the environment when a disaster happens. The paper provides a basis for the construction professionals and stakeholders to understand the critical factors influencing resource availability in a post‐disaster situation.