Post-disaster Temporary Housing Research Articles

A region-based criterion weighting approach for the assessment of post-disaster shelters

The need for shelter after disasters is a common issue, and its planning should occur during the risk management phase, not in the post-disaster process. Following the initial few weeks of emergency aid, the rehabilitation phase comes into play, encompassing the period spent in tem- porary housing units until a transition to permanent housing is achieved. Like the emergency aid phase, this phase cannot be sustained solely by emergency shelter tents due to its extended duration, which is shorter than the time required to construct permanent housing. Specific de- signs suited to the rehabilitation phase are necessary. However, many post-disaster temporary housing implementations have failed to meet the requirements. The study aims to establish a decision-making model for assessing temporary housing alternatives in the aftermath of a disaster. The experts must initially identify the criteria and assign their respective weights to build this model. They contend that the significance of criteria should differ depending on the particular attributes of diverse locales. To accomplish this, a methodology for determining cri- teria weights and an evaluation model is suggested, considering discrepancies in urban density, household size, urban accessibility, and climatic conditions based on regional dissimilarities.

Simulating post-disaster temporary housing needs for displaced households and out-of-town contractors

Residential damage from major disasters often displaces local residents out of their homes and into temporary housing. Out-of-town contractors assisting in post-disaster housing reconstruction also need housing, creating additional pressure on the local housing stock. Communities should thus prepare for a surge in temporary housing demand to minimize the impact on the local residents and to expedite housing recovery efforts. Computational models can support recovery planning. This article introduces an agent-based simulation framework to estimate the workforce demand and the joint temporary housing needs of contractors and displaced households. The main agents are households seeking to repair their homes, local contractors, and out-of-town contractors. Out-of-town contractor agents come into the community if the labor and housing markets are favorable. The framework can be used to evaluate the resulting challenges and benefits of interventions aimed at attracting out-of-town contractors to expedite housing recovery. We present a case study on the housing recovery of the city of San Francisco after hypothetical M 6.5, M 7.2, and M 7.9 earthquakes. A shortage of contractors is shown to bottleneck the reconstruction if no out-of-town contractors are recruited. Conversely, out-of-town contractors increase the likelihood of temporary housing shortages. These results highlight the need to plan for shortages of reconstruction labor and temporary housing during recovery.

Evaluation of Post-Disaster Temporary Housing Units in the Context of COVID-19

Disasters affecting the whole world in different ways and degrees may happen at any time – even simultaneously – need to be reconsidered, especially so at the moment of writing (early in the 21st century) under the shadow of an ongoing pandemic. Earthquakes (occurring at a higher level now in Turkey) should be discussed within this pandemic context; preventative measures require to be put in place as well as disaster management plans. This paper focuses on temporary housing design: a crucial aspect in any anticipated extension of rehabilitation and reconstruction periods. It has taken the Marmara Earthquakes (1999) as a case study. Criteria are defined based on limiting the rate of infection and motivating people to stay indoors, and are weighted using a multi-criteria decision-making method called Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The plans of the various house-types have been evaluated within this framework: the data developed is based on the temporary housing design and a correlation established between their ability to stand up to pandemic conditions and the sizes of the units.

The Role of Local Building Systems in Enhancing the Sustainability of Post-Disaster Temporary Housing

Housing destruction and resulting population displacement are among the most visible effects of post-disaster scenarios, and the provision of temporary housing during the disaster recovery phase is critical to ensuring adequate levels of comfort, protection, privacy, and a gradual return to normal life activities. The urgent need to provide temporary housing quickly led to a focus on the use of prefabricated building systems based on standardized and comprehensive solutions, and despite the multitude of solutions offered in previous disaster scenarios, they often led to unsuccessful results. Since the solutions offered did not meet users' social and cultural needs, they were unsustainable in the long and short term of the disaster recovery period. Conversely, solutions based on local building systems can significantly reduce costs and provide temporary housing units faster. The research aims to understand the role of the local building system in building and providing temporary housing after disasters and its impact on the sustainable performance of temporary housing during the disaster recovery phase. The research found that a balanced use of prefabricated and local building systems is the best option to make temporary housing more successful after disasters. Keywords: post-disaster, sustainability, temporary housing, local building systems, prefabricated building systems DOI: 10.7176/CER/14-2-05 Publication date: April 30 th 2022

Factors affecting the post-disaster temporary housing construction.

Every year, around 14 million people become homeless worldwide due to natural disasters. Providing temporary housing for the affected people is considered a complex task as it is affected by numerous factors such as socioeconomic, logistics, and community characteristics of the region. Acknowledging and creating a balance between these needs by the agencies or contractors who provide accommodations to post-disaster victims is one of the main challenges that need to be addressed. Although many research efforts have been made regarding studying the factors, there is a lack of reviewing these factors in detail and how they can affect each other. This review paper studies the factors affecting the building process of temporary housings. It highlights the type and frequency of the factors that have been studied by different researchers and agencies in the past 20 years (1999-2019). The resources used for this research were "Academic Search Premier" and "Engineering Village" databases, as well as the gray literature. It also provides a comprehensive review of research and reports that have studied the combination of these factors and how they have covered many of them.

Temporary housing operations: A simulation-based inventory management approach using the newsvendor model

A greater dependence on post-disaster temporary housing has emerged following an increase in the severity and frequency of disasters and their corresponding social and economic impacts on communities. Effective operations management of temporary housing before, during, and after a disaster is critical to the recovery of communities. On one hand, lack of inventory stock increases the cost associated with emergency purchases made during disasters. On the other hand, increasing inventory stock comes at an initial investment cost before a disaster but can potentially avoid large financial losses incurred from emergency purchases, temporary housing demands, and prolonged community recovery. This study addresses the challenge of balancing temporary housing allocation before and during a disaster. The proposed approach adopts a simulation-based demand forecasting method and an inventory optimization model to identify the most cost-effective stocking inventory for temporary housing. An illustrative case study is presented, demonstrating that an optimized inventory can reduce expected losses from post-disaster temporary housing units in comparison to previous United States baseline stocking inventories.

Enhancing cultural adequacy in post-disaster temporary housing

In the aftermath of any large-scale disaster, the recovery process is often challenged by the urgency to rehabilitate the displaced communities and restore normalcy at the earliest, wherein the post-disaster ‘Temporary Housing’ (TH) programs have historically played an important role. Yet, numerous studies have highlighted the issues of cultural adequacy in TH, which remain to be a rather underexplored area of research. To bridge this gap, this study methodically reviews the existing literature on TH programs after three prominent disaster events in Asia namely, Sichuan earthquake 2008 (China), Merapi eruption 2010 (Indonesia) and Tohoku earthquake and tsunami 2011 (Japan). Referring to the key principles of cultural adequacy (housing policy, public spaces, cultural background, and co-design) underlined by the Geneva UN Charter on Sustainable Housing, the authors derive cross-case lessons from the selected disaster events and suggest feasible strategies to enhance the cultural adequacy in TH programs. Although the implementation of any TH program depends on the disaster scale and damages, the study underlines the need for establishing clear policy directions. While the uncertainty associated with post-disaster period often side-lines the socio-cultural peculiarities, having a pre-disaster strategic plan can potentially allow the expression of cultural identity, and local values in TH.

Assessing the sustainability index of different post-disaster temporary housing unit configuration types

Temporary housing units (THUs), as a solution for accommodating displaced population (DP) in the aftermath of disasters, are critical in terms of the three main sustainability pillars: economic, environmental, and social. Furthermore, the need for these units could grow due to the currently increasing social vulnerability and climate-related hazards. Thus, to enhance the sustainability performance of THUs, which incorporate the most negative aspects of the building industry, is required. One of the THUs less-studied features, which could have considerable impacts on the main pillars of sustainability, is unit configuration types. Therefore, this study presents a novel model that enables decision-makers to select the most suitable THUs configuration types based on the characteristics and requirements each case has. This model combines several methods for the first time, learning from these methods numerous former uncombined applications. This model assesses THUs sustainability using the Integrated Value Model for Sustainability Assessment (MIVES) combined with DesignBuilder®, a simplified life-cycle assessment (LCA), interviews and sensibility analyses.1 This project applies this model for the first time to assess different THUs suggested for Bam's earthquake recovery program. This application has validated the model demonstrating that semi-detached units perform as the most suitable configuration types alternatives for Bam's THUs. This is especially the case of two-story types, although several social issues should be improved in future DP housing. Furthermore, after this pioneering research paper in the subfield of THU configuration types, future projects should enlarge upon its findings to move towards better THUs for the future.

Post-Disaster Temporary Housing: An Emic Study of Lived Experiences of Victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

In Japan, after a brief stay at a temporary shelter immediately following a disaster, disaster victims (DVs) are provided temporary housing (TH), which precedes permanent recovery housing. Procurement, design, and allocation of TH are standardized and done using an outsider's (etic) perspective and considerations. The research questions for this study were: What were the lived experiences of DVs having to live in the TH supplied? How could life in TH be made more comfortable through design and planning? This research was conducted from a local person's (emic) perspective and focused on lived experiences, fit, coping, and adjustments. To uncover and understand what was important to the DV a Naturalistic Field Research method was used which involved fieldwork, on-site observations, and interviews. Important learnings included the following: Lived experience in TH was made difficult by their unsuitable, inconvenient, and impractical design, which lacked appropriate consideration of residents’ needs as well as cultural and religious practices. Adequate privacy was not provided by the nature of the construction. Though modifications were not permitted at most TH, unauthorized do-it-yourself modification efforts were made by DVs to improve their quality of life. Theoretical considerations and pragmatic implications are described in the concluding discussion.

Residential preference transitions of disaster victims: A case using three-wave panel data in Mashiki following the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake in Japan

The Japanese government supplies post-disaster public housing (PDPH) to victims who are unable to rebuild homes damaged by a disaster. The efficient supply of PDPH requires an accurate prediction of housing demand, based on survey results. However, non-negligible households often change their residential preferences from the initial survey, and these changes make the demand prediction difficult. This study aims to examine the transition of victims’ residential preferences in Mashiki, Japan, post the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake. The study utilizes a three-wave panel data analysis comprising two sets of household survey data and the applicant data for PDPH to investigate disaster victim behavior with greater accuracy and provide a predictive tool for disaster management. The results indicate that households that initially preferred “rebuilding/repairing their homes” or “relocating to another place,” had young householders, did not live in post-disaster temporary housing, and had a high annual income tended to cancel moving into PDPH. These results can be instrumental in predicting the transition of residential preferences in future disasters. This study can establish patterns that, in turn, would help local governments predict the demand of PDPH provided as a form of disaster relief.

Post-disaster Temporary Housing System based on Generative Design Method

Post-disaster Temporary Housing System based on Generative Design Method

A Review of Temporary Housing Management Modeling: Trends in Design Strategies, Optimization Models, and Decision-Making Methods

Temporary housing plays a critical role in disaster response and recovery by providing a temporary home for displaced people before they return to their permanent residence. In recent years, temporary housing has faced three primary dilemmas related to design type, site selection, and cost. Significant contributions have been made in research and in practice to improve temporary housing management. However, gaps still exist in resolving the dilemmas, and a critical review and evaluation of current methods is needed to determine the path forward and identify priorities of future research. This paper presents a comprehensive overview of prior methods developed and applied towards temporary housing management and identifies future pathways for success in temporary housing research and implementation. The literature review reveals that temporary housing requires further research in proactive management, storage, sustainability, and community resilience to effectively enhance post-disaster temporary housing. This study finds that programs such as the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and the Sheltering and Temporary Essential Power (STEP) program provide methodologies which can benefit temporary housing implementation, designs, and modeling. In addition, circular economy thinking can enable the recyclability of temporary housing to reduce economic and environmental impacts.

Designing post-disaster temporary housing inspired by the housing of indigenous nomads of Iran

Abstract The significance of post-disaster temporary housing for the victims has led to the problem of designing a good model of temporary housing. According to research hypothesis, using the design of Iranian nomads’ housing instead of common forms of temporary housing contributes to energy saving. Investigating the architecture of nomads’ housing indicates that there is a type of indigenous knowledge for designing and constructing this type of housing. After the study, data collection and a review of the types of Iranian nomads’ housing using library and causal method, thermal simulation was conducted to investigate the effect of changing the temporary housing form inspired by the nomads’ housing on energy consumption. Findings showed that using shapes like Kapars of Baluchistan nomads, wigwams of Shahsavan tribe in Ardabil and mudhifs of Khuzestan will save energy for 36%, 24% and 25%, respectively.

Multi-objective interior design optimization method based on sustainability concepts for post-disaster temporary housing units

Temporary housing units (THUs), which are provided after disasters, are crucial in terms of sustainability pillars (economic, social, and environmental). In general, THUs, which are regular houses with minimum space and facilities, incorporate some negative aspects of the building industry. Additionally, as large numbers of THUs are usually provided in a short time and under emergency situations, some negative impacts of these units escalate. In this context, this study aims at reducing some negative impacts of THUs by applying a novel optimization model that maximises sustainability indexes by simulating the design of interior geometries for THUs. This method is based on the coupling of artificial intelligence and a multi-criteria decision-making model for sustainability assessment. The proposed model generates optimal solutions using a backtracking algorithm together with a binary search. To evaluate the sustainability indexes, an Integrated Value Model for Sustainability Assessment (MIVES) is applied. This novel method enables decision makers to automatically generate the most suitable alternative solutions for the early design stage of THUs. The results confirm that small changes in the interior geometric design can remarkably affect the sustainability indexes of THUs.

Comparative Assessment of Indian Post-Disaster Temporary Housing Strategies

AbstractRisks to communities arise due to their inability to adapt to the impacts of natural disaster, technological bottleneck, and knowledge and capacity constraints. In this situation it is impo...

Impact of Japanese Post-Disaster Temporary Housing Areas' (THAs) Design on Mental and Social Health.

The phenomenon named kodokushi, meaning death alone without the care or company of anyone inside temporary housing, appeared after the Kobe earthquake in Japan in 1995 with some 250 cases. This paper analyzes the evolution of Japanese temporary houses—to attempt to prevent the problem of kodokushi—from the point of view of management, how services and activities are organized, and design. We will use case studies as our methodological tool, analyzing the responses in 1995 Kobe (50,000 THs), 2004 Chūetsu (3000 THs), 2011 Tōhoku (50,000 THs), and 2016 Kumamoto (4000 THs). This article shows how the Japanese THAs follow a single design that has undergone very little variation in the last 25 years, a design which promotes the social isolation of their residents, making recovery—from the psychological perspective—and helping the most vulnerable members of society, more difficult. In small scale disasters (Chūetsu) applying organization and management measures was able to correct the problems caused by design and there were no cases of kodokushi: in large-scale disasters (Tōhoku), however, the difficulties to implement the same measures resulted in the reappearance of new cases at rates similar to Kobe’s. Our main conclusion is that the design of Japanese THAs must be reconsidered and changed to respond to the real needs of the most vulnerable groups.

A sustainability-based model for dealing with the uncertainties of post-disaster temporary housing

ABSTRACT In the aftermath of disasters, temporary housing (TH) needs to be provided for displaced people to mitigate human suffering. In the numerous cases in which a chosen TH strategy is unsuitable for the case-specific local conditions, the TH’s negative impacts tend to intensify, especially when decision-makers have to change their initial plan. The unsuitability of the initial plans and the resulting need to change them are usually due to the uncertainty of post-disaster conditions. As most TH provision strategies have weaknesses, the most suitable approach will thus be the one that best matches the specific circumstances of each scenario. This paper presents a new model to determine the most appropriate policy to minimize conflicts between local requirements and TH characteristics. The model relies on the authors’ previous research and was calibrated by analyzing the 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran, and the 2004 earthquake and tsunami in Aceh, Indonesia.

An historical study on temporary and emergency post-disaster housing

During recent years, the number of natural and non-natural disasters has drastically increased, due to the climate change, causing great damages on buildings and a high number of homeless people. However, post-disaster temporary housing solutions seem to have sustainability problems. Through a historical excursus, this work aims to analyse the steps that led to the current idea of temporary housing, in order to evaluate its functional and constructive characteristics. Finally, some considerations on improving thermal environment inside temporary housings are discussed.

Proposing a Model for the Design of Post-Disaster Temporary Housing Based on the Needs of the Injured with Post-Implementation Evaluation Approach (Case Study: Earthquake-Stricken Villages in Heris of East Azerbaijan)

Purpose: This study aimed to design a temporary housing pattern tailored to the needs of the injured after a natural disaster. Design/methodology/approach: This study had an applied objective and employed a descriptive-analytical method with an approach to survey and post-implementation evaluation. The criteria for temporary accommodation design were collected through library research and the victims’ satisfaction of these criteria was considered through field research. The criteria included socio-cultural, physical-functional and technical-structural elements. Field research was carried out in 10 villages of Heris County, East Azerbaijan, which were destroyed completely by earthquake in 2012. Field research was conducted through user-oriented procedures of questionnaires, interviews and field observations. In total, the criteria were evaluated in separate tables based on the Likert spectrum. Findings: The results indicated that the victims were dissatisfied with temporary resettlement after the earthquake in all three criteria. Research limitations/implications: The main limitation of this study was the high cost of numerous visits to villages and low willingness of their inhabitants to cooperate with interviewers and answer the questions for various reasons. Practical implications: Improvement strategies were proposed to enhance the quality temporary housing through organized interviews with the injured. Suggestions made by experts led to proposing some improvement strategies as well. Finally, the design of the temporary housing model was put forward in accordance with these solutions. Originality/value: This article initiated an innovative design of temporary housing which was tailored to the needs of those who had experienced the disaster based on their perceptions, not merely based on existing theoretical foundations.

Life-time performance of post-disaster temporary housing: A case study in Nanjing

Temporary housing is crucial to disaster recovery, due to the demand for large numbers within a short period. The short life cycle and unique functional requirements associated with temporary housing could lead to significant environmental impacts. However these have not been adequately investigated. This paper focuses on the life cycle performance of light-framed temporary housing in China with local technologies, taking Chinese electricity mix of each process and domestic transportation distances into consideration. The research selects four popular temporary housing in China, calculates the material requirements and compares the life cycle impact of different wall assemblies based on Future House built in Nanjing. While energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are used as surrogate indicators of environmental impact, total life-time impact is established by including construction energy, operating energy, maintenance energy and end-of-life energy and corresponding greenhouse gas emissions. It was found that the life cycle energy of post-disaster temporary housing is much higher in comparison to low energy buildings with construction energy contributing 65% to life cycle energy due to unique requirements. The results also show that life cycle energy of post-disaster shelters could be reduced by using recycled materials, lighter structural materials and light wall cladding materials.