Modeling Long-Term Housing Recovery after Technological Disaster Using a Virtual Audit with Repeated Photography

2021 ◽  
pp. 0739456X2110029
Author(s):  
Marccus D. Hendricks ◽  
Michelle Annette Meyer

Many communities face risks of technological disasters at fertilizer plants and other facilities. Understanding damage and rebuilding of housing supports planners in implementing policies that will enable recovery. Using repeat photography, this study audited housing rebuilding in West, Texas for three years following an explosion. Photos were combined with appraisal data to understand variation in rebuilding across parcels. Results indicate that rebuilding slows dramatically after year 1, leaving many parcels vacant three years post-disaster. Parcels with higher pre-disaster values were more likely to be completely rebuilt. Planners need targeted programming to support rebuilding of lower-value homes and address vacancies.

2009 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 33-37
Author(s):  
Jonathan West ◽  
Kristina Peterson

Disaster recovery efforts, especially directly following a natural or technological disaster, tend to focus on the immediate short-term needs of communities. The disaster recovery literature (Rolfe and Britton 1995, Tootle 2007) references the pressure governments are under to be proactive in the aftermath of a disaster. Unfortunately, by focusing so tightly on short-term needs, long-term planning, which can be critical to a community's ultimate resilience, can often be overlooked, inhibited, or disrupted. The fulfillment of an immediate short-term need can act as a force to push against and limit a community's long-term vision. Universities and government and non-profit agencies that work to provide valuable services to communities, especially in post-disaster situations, must be attuned to the long-term visions of the communities with which they work. At the Center for Hazards Assessment, Response, and Technology (CHART), we have taken advantage of the reflective character of participatory action research (PAR) in order to learn from our own shortcomings in such partnerships. An account of our missteps and wrong turns in regards to one particular project could be useful to others starting similar collaborative efforts.


1988 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 281-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. David Pijawka ◽  
Beverly A. Cuthbertson ◽  
Richard S. Olson

The field of thanatology has given extensive attention to death as an outcome of illness. A more comprehensive picture, however, would also encompass the hazards of natural and technological disasters. Deaths from both natural and technological disasters continue to increase in the United States, despite intensified government efforts to reverse this trend, and despite improved understanding of the cognitive processes of people who face either long-term or impending catastrophes. Key findings are reviewed in the areas of vulnerability to natural hazards, disaster behavior and risk perception, societal concern over technological hazard, and the social-psychological effects of disasters. It is noted that findings based upon natural disasters cannot necessarily be extrapolated to technological disasters, such as the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. Furthermore, data on long-term emotional recovery from natural disasters are inconsistent. Among areas requiring more extensive research is the role of the media, and the measurement of secondary consequences to disaster exposure. Improved methodologies for measuring distress over long periods of time must be developed. The disaster may never end for technological disaster victims because of the long latency period between exposure and disease manifestation.


Author(s):  
Anuradha Mukherji

Rapid urbanization and growing populations have put tremendous pressures on limited global housing stocks. As the frequency of disasters has increased with devastating impacts on this limited stock of housing, the discourse on post-disaster housing recovery has evolved in several ways. Prior to the 1970s, the field was largely understudied, and there was a narrow understanding of how households and communities rebuilt their homes after a catastrophic event and on the effectiveness of housing recovery policy and programs designed to assist them. Early debates on post-disaster housing recovery centered on cultural and technological appropriateness of housing recovery programs. The focus on materials, technology, and climate missed larger socioeconomic and political complexities of housing recovery. Since then, the field has come a long way: current theoretical and policy debates focus on the effect of governance structures, funding practices, the consequences of public and private interventions, and socioeconomic and institutional arrangements that effect housing recovery outcomes. There are a number of critical issues that shape long-term post-disaster housing recovery processes and outcomes, especially in urban contexts. Some of them include the role of the government in post-disaster housing recovery, governance practices that drive recovery processes and outcomes, the challenges of paying for post-disaster housing repair and reconstruction, the disconnect between planning for rebuilding and planning for housing recovery, and the mismatch between existing policy programs and housing needs after a catastrophic event—particularly for affordable housing recovery. Moreover, as housing losses after disasters continue to increase, and as the funding available to rebuild housing stocks shrinks, it has become increasingly important to craft post-disaster housing recovery policy and programs that apply the limited resources in the most efficient and impactful ways. Creating housing recovery programs by employing a needs-based approach instead of one based solely on loss could more effectively focus limited resources on those that might need it the most. Such an approach would be broad based and proportional, as it would address the housing recovery of a wide range of groups based upon their needs, including low-income renters, long-term leaseholders, residents of informal settlements and manufactured homes, as well as those with preexisting resources such as owner-occupant housing.


2021 ◽  
pp. 205789112110192
Author(s):  
Peng Lin

Engaging in disaster relief and, more recently, post-disaster reconstruction in developing countries with critical geoeconomic and geopolitical interests has become an increasingly regular and institutionalized component of China’s evolving humanitarian diplomacy over the past decade. Drawn upon novel evidence from China’s growing disaster-related humanitarian assistance to Nepal and unprecedented engagement in Nepal’s long-term post-earthquake rebuild since 2015, this article explores the dynamics behind China’s transforming humanitarian diplomacy. The findings of this article suggest that: 1) geopolitical and geoeconomic interests, represented by the Belt-and-Road Initiative, serve as a critical driver for the development of China’s bilateral partnership with other countries in the disaster sector; 2) long-term cooperation with underdeveloped countries like Nepal provides China, both government and non-state actors (NSAs), with an effective channel to engage with the international humanitarian community and to internalize humanitarian norms; 3) although humanitarian missions remain contingent and instrumental in China’s international relations, they are laying the foundations for a specialized humanitarian policy area with more relevant normative assets, more professional actors, and more sophisticated institutions; 4) NSAs, represented by private foundations and civil NGOs, have played active roles in the state-dominant cooperation in disaster management. This article also suggests that intensified geopolitical confrontations, such as military clashes between India and China along their disputed borders over the past year, would lead to a high degree of politicization of humanitarian missions and partnerships counter-conducive to humanitarian goals.


Author(s):  
Tetsuya Akaishi ◽  
Tomomi Suzuki ◽  
Harumi Nemoto ◽  
Yusuke Utsumi ◽  
Moe Seto ◽  
...  

Abstract Objective: This study aims to evaluate the long-term impact of living in post-disaster prefabricated temporary housing on social interaction activities and mental health status. Methods: A total of 917 adult residents in a coastal town, whose residences were destroyed by the tsunami caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE), were enrolled for the assessment held five years after the disaster. They answered questions about their experience and consequence of living in prefabricated temporary housing after the disaster. Their present scores on five types of self-reported measures regarding the psychosocial or psychiatric status and their present and recalled social interaction activities were cross-sectionally collected. Results: A total of 587 (64.0%) participants had a history of living in prefabricated temporary housing, while the other 330 (36.0%) had not. The prevalence of social interaction activities significantly decreased after the GEJE. However, the experience of living in prefabricated temporary housing did not adversely affect the subsequent social interaction activities or mental conditions of the participants five years after the disaster. Conclusions: Living in post-disaster prefabricated temporary housing may not negatively impact subsequent psychosocial conditions or social interaction activities five years later.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chandni Singh ◽  
Mark Tebboth ◽  
Jasmitha Arvind ◽  
Yashodara Udupa

This study focuses on disaster impacts and recovery in Tamil Nadu, drawing on insights from Chennai city and Nagapattinam district. The research is part of a larger three-year project called “Recovery with Dignity”, which examines the experiences of recovery in post-disaster situations across three states in India – Odisha, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala – and explores how recovery processes represent vulnerable populations. In this report, we focus on three key disasters in Tamil Nadu: the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, the 2015 South India flood, and the 2018 Cyclone Gaja. Through these events, we examine how the ways disasters and their losses are represented shape recovery outcomes. The study uses a range of data, from a review of state policies in Tamil Nadu (2005-2019), an analysis of media articles published in English and Tamil (2004-2019), to interviews with disaster-affected people and secondary stakeholders. The findings indicate that disaster responses and outcomes are highly differentiated based on how disaster-affected people and their needs and losses are represented. To enable inclusive recovery, it is necessary to recognising the heterogenous nature of disaster impacts and acknowledge different ideas of what recovery means.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Lawrence ◽  
Jonathan Boston ◽  
R Bell ◽  
S Olufson ◽  
R Kool ◽  
...  

Purpose of Review: Managed retreat will be inevitable where other adaptation options, such as protective structures or building restrictions, provide only temporary respite or are otherwise uneconomic, technically impractical or both. Here, we focus on the implementation of pre-emptive managed retreat, providing examples of how it can be sequenced, socialised and given the governance enablers necessary for implementation. Recent Findings: Ongoing sea-level rise during the twenty-first century and beyond poses huge adaptation challenges, especially for low-lying coastal and floodplain settlements. Settlements are already functionally disrupted from repetitive non-extreme flooding and research shows that sea-level rise will impact far more people, far sooner than previously thought, as more powerful storms, heavy rainfall and rising groundwater coincide with higher tides. To date, most examples of managed retreat have been post-disaster responses following damage and disruption. Pre-emptive managed retreat, by contrast, has yet to become a well-accepted and widely practised adaptation response. Nevertheless, there are increasing examples of research and practice on how pre-emptive managed retreat can be designed, sequenced and implemented alongside other forms of adaptation within anticipatory forms of governance. Summary: The current state of knowledge about managed retreat is reviewed and critical insights and lessons for governance and policy-making are given. Several novel examples from New Zealand are presented to address some of the implementation gaps. Goals and principles are enunciated to inform long-term adaptation strategies.


2013 ◽  
pp. 1302-1324
Author(s):  
Peter Tatham ◽  
Gyöngyi Kovács

Although there is a vast body of academic and practitioner literature championing the importance of trust in long-term business relationships, relatively little has been written discussing the development and maintenance of trust in networks that are formed at short notice and that often operate for a limited period of time. However, some models of trust and trusting behavior in such “hastily formed relief networks” (HFRN) do exist, and the aim of this chapter is to consider the theoretical application of one of the most prominent examples – that known as “swift trust” – to a post-disaster humanitarian logistics scenario. Presented from the perspective of a HFRN, this chapter presents a discussion of the practical application of the swift trust model.


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