Long-term satisfaction of resettled communities: An assessment of physical performance of post-disaster housing

Abstract

Sri Lanka experiences regular natural hazard-related disasters: flooding, landslides, cyclones and droughts. These events cause devastating effects in terms of human casualties, disturbing settlements and damaging properties. Besides human casualties, one of the most visible and striking effects of these disasters is the destruction of houses: as a result, there is a requirement for post-disaster housing reconstruction. Post-disaster housing delivery can be either assistance in rebuilding original dwellings or permanent relocation to resettlement schemes. Under any of these circumstances, implementation of relocation schemes must ensure that the beneficiaries are ultimately satisfied in order to safeguard performance of such construction initiatives in the long term. The purpose of this study is to quantitatively assess and compare the long-term satisfaction of the relocated communities in relation to physical performance of the housing reconstruction projects. In addition to a literature review carried out on key performance indicators (KPIs) to investigate the long-term performance of post-disaster housing reconstruction, a survey was carried out with the occupants of flood-, landslide- and tsunami-induced relocation projects in Sri Lanka. The empirical evidence revealed that resettled communities in all three case studies were mildly satisfied in the long term in terms of physical performance of the relocation. Furthermore, provision for alteration and expansion, orientation and layout of the house, the number of rooms, and lighting and ventilation were found to be important factors that require special attention with regard to planning and design for long-term physical performance of post-disaster housing because these were found to statistically correlate with overall satisfaction across the three case study projects.