Post-disaster Recovery Efforts Research Articles

Toward participatory participation: A community perspective on effective engagement in post-disaster recovery and reconstruction

ABSTRACT Engaging citizens is crucial in disaster recovery efforts, yet its actualization remains elusive. Communities often find themselves relegated to passive recipients, leading to suboptimal reconstruction projects. The primary objective of this study was to explore the community’s perspective regarding optimal processes and outcomes requisite for their meaningful participation, aligning these insights with community development principles. Utilizing qualitative research methodologies such as face-to-face interviews, observations, focus group discussions, and questionnaire surveys the study identified key processes, including equitable stakeholder representation, empowerment in decision-making, integration of indigenous knowledge, early community engagement, and capacity enhancement. These processses are pivital for achieving sustainable development outcomes such as project ownership and successful attainment of project objectives. This research provides critical insights into engaging residents in post-disaster recovery and reconstruction efforts emphasizing the integral role of community development in facilitating inclusive and effective recovery and ensuring projects meet community needs and expectations.

A digital twin framework for efficient electric power restoration and resilient recovery in the aftermath of hurricanes considering the interdependencies with road network and essential facilities

The community's resilience in the face of natural hazards relies heavily on the rapid and efficient restoration of electric power networks, which plays a critical role in emergency response, economic recovery, and the functionality of essential lifeline and social infrastructure systems. Leveraging the recent data revolution, the digital twin (DT) concept emerges as a promising tool to enhance the effectiveness of post-disaster recovery efforts. This paper introduces a novel framework for post-hurricane electric power restoration using a hybrid DT approach that combines physics-based and data-driven models by utilizing a dynamic Bayesian network. By capturing the complexities of power system dynamics and incorporating the road network's influence, the framework offers a comprehensive methodology to guide real-time power restoration efforts in post-disaster scenarios. A discrete event simulation is conducted to demonstrate the proposed framework's efficacy. The study showcases how the electric power restoration DT can be monitored and updated in real-time, reflecting changing conditions and facilitating adaptive decision-making. Furthermore, it demonstrates the framework's flexibility to allow decision-makers to prioritize essential, residential, and business facilities and compare different restoration plans and their potential effect on the community.

Palu-Koro Fault on Social Media: Mixed Approach Study of Disaster Information Spread and the Potential of Geotourism Promotion

This article discusses the role of influencers, social media, and information spread in promoting the geotourism of the Palu-Koro Fault. As one of the governmental bodies responsible for geotourism, the Central Sulawesi Provincial Tourism and Creative Economy Office is trying to introduce these relatively new geotourism sites. One of the efforts is to make full use of social media. Influencers are collaborated with not only to introduce geotourism but also to build branding. Geotourism is one of the many topics brought up by social media users regarding the post-disaster recovery efforts in Pasigala. Thus, in this study, we applied a mixed-method analysis by comparing the analysis of the data collected from Twitter using a descriptive quantitative approach utilising structural and actor-based social network analysis and in-depth interview data with key informants from the Central Sulawesi Provincial Tourism and Creative Economy Office staffs and three influencers in collaboration using descriptive qualitative-case study approach utilising narrative analysis. The results showed that most Twitter users sought prominent actors, such as influencers and government officials, for information in time and after the disaster struck. While the three disasters are the most heavily discussed, post-disaster programs and plans are also prominent, including geotourism. The Central Sulawesi Provincial Tourism and Creative Economy Office collaborated with the influencers due to their ability and potential to spread information fast and wide to their followers. The message is formed to promote the newly formed geotourism sites, educate people, and build positive views of the impacted sites. Keywords: Geotourism, Palu-Koro, social media, information, social network analysis.

Unveiling spatial inequalities: Exploring county-level disaster damages and social vulnerability on public disaster assistance in contiguous US

Understanding the dynamics between public disaster assistance, disaster damages, and social vulnerability at county-level is crucial for designing effective disaster mitigation strategies. This study utilized the Local Bivariate Moran Index (LBMI) and geographically weighted regression (GWR) models to examine spatial patterns and relationships between disaster damages, social vulnerability, and public disaster assistance in contiguous US counties from 2001 to 2021. LBMI results reveal that public disaster assistance has predominantly been directed towards post-disaster recovery efforts, with a particular focus on coastal communities affected by major declared disasters. However, the distributions of public assistance and individual housing assistance, which are the two primary sources of public disaster assistance, do not adequately cover physically and socially vulnerable communities. The distribution of pre-disaster risk mitigation also falls short of sufficiently covering vulnerable communities. Results further indicate the complex interactions between different categories of natural disasters and public assistances. The GWR model results demonstrate spatial variations in predicting each category of public disaster assistance. These findings indicate the need to address disparities in accessing public disaster assistance in the US, and advocate for more equitable disaster mitigation strategies.

AN ANALYSIS OF POST-DISASTER RECOVERY EFFORTS IN TURKEY ACCORDING TO KURT LEWIN'S CHANGE MODEL EXAMPLE OF KAHRAMANMARAŞ AND HATAY PROVINCES

Turkey, which has a surface area of 780 thousand square kilometers, is a country that is in the position of a bridge between the European and Asian continents, most of which is in the Asian continent. Due to its location, Turkey's territory is highly prone to natural disasters and has faced many disasters such as earthquakes, floods, landslides and avalanches. This high- risk geography has hosted major earthquakes, floods, landslides and avalanches every five years on average. Turkey, which has been exposed to disasters whose exact location, time and type cannot be determined, is in a constant state of change in terms of managing and improving the post-disaster crisis situation, especially in terms of physical, economic and social losses after these natural events. Especially social losses after disasters can be classified as losses that take longer to recover, require more labor and cause countries to spend more energy after the crisis compared to physical and economic losses. Post-disaster social losses require adaptive measures and change management with reference to the previous situation, which has become obligatory to change. This study aims to examine post-disaster recovery efforts in Turkey in the context of Kurt Lewin's Three Stages of Change Model. In this direction, the studies related to the Three Stages of Change Model have been analysed and the social context of post-disaster recovery efforts around the theory has been evaluated within the framework of Kahramanmaraş and Hatay earthquakes.

Mental Recovery Post Cianjur Earthquake Disaster Among Nursing Student Who Living in Cianjur

It is been almost 1 month since the Cianjur earthquake disaster, but there are still many problems that have not been resolved. One of these problems is the post-disaster trauma of the people affected by the Cianjur earthquake. Post-disaster mental recovery efforts are needed, especially for nursing students who are domiciled in the Cianjur region. The purpose of this community service activity is to carry out post-disaster recovery efforts and provide material support to nursing students who are domiciled throughout the Cianjur. This community service activity was held on December 19 2022 by all lecturers, educational staff, and nursing student association (HIMA) Fitkes Unjani by providing deep breathing relaxation therapy and material support assistance for 32 nursing students who live in 4 subdistricts in Cianjur. The results of the recovery effort showed that there was a difference in the average anxiety score between pre and postmental recovery therapy with a significant value of 0.001, (<0.05), which means that post-mental recovery therapy can significantly reduce anxiety scores. Deep breathing relaxation therapy has been proven to be able to significantly assist the mental recovery process after the Cianjur earthquake disaster for nursing students who live in Cianjur. It is suggested to all nursing students affected by the Cianjur earthquake to apply this therapy to further reduce anxiety after the Cianjur earthquake.

Health and Safety Challenges Among Post-Disaster Reconstruction Workers

With the increase in the number of natural disasters in recent years, post-disaster reconstruction (PDR) efforts have become increasingly important to aid community recovery. Accordingly, a large body of recent research has focused on identifying the best practices for accelerating recovery and restoring impacted communities. However, relatively little attention has been devoted to the health and safety challenges experienced by reconstruction workers that aid post-disaster recovery and reconstruction efforts. The current investigation focused on addressing this knowledge gap by seeking to uncover the health and safety challenges that reconstruction workers experienced in the context of the 2015 Gorkha earthquake in Nepal – that was responsible for nearly 9,000 deaths and 22,000 injuries. The data collection effort involved in-depth interviews with several stakeholders, including construction workers, supervisors, site engineers, general contractors, homeowners, and governmental officials. This study enhances our understanding of the health and safety challenges experienced by PDR workers. The study also offers insight on how the obtained knowledge can be leveraged by government and stakeholders with supervisory roles to ensure proper health, safety, and wellbeing of the reconstruction workers.

How Spatial Resolution of Remote Sensing Image Affects Earthquake Triggered Landslide Detection: An Example from 2022 Luding Earthquake, Sichuan, China

The magnitude 6.8 Luding earthquake that occurred on 5 September 2022, triggered multiple large-scale landslides and caused a heavy loss of life and property. The investigation of earthquake-triggered landslides (ETLs) facilitates earthquake disaster assessments, rescue, reconstruction, and other post-disaster recovery efforts. Therefore, it is important to obtain landslide inventories in a timely manner. At present, landslide detection is mainly conducted manually, which is time-consuming and laborious, while a machine-assisted approach helps improve the efficiency and accuracy of landslide detection. This study uses a fully convolutional neural network algorithm with the Adam optimizer to automatically interpret the aerial and satellite data of landslides. However, due to the different resolutions of the remote sensing images, the detected landslides vary in boundary and quantity. In this study, we conducted an assessment in the study area of Wandong village in the earthquake-affected area of Luding. UAV images, GF-6 satellite images, and Landsat 8 satellite images, with a resolution of 0.2 m, 2 m, and 15 m, respectively, were selected to detect ETLs. Then, the accuracy of the results was compared and verified with visual detection results and field survey data. The study indicates that as the resolution decreases, the accuracy of landslide detection also decreases. The overall landslide area detection rate of UAV imagery can reach 82.17%, while that of GF-6 and Landsat 8 imagery is only 52.26% and 48.71%. The landslide quantity detection rate of UAV imagery can reach 99.07%, while that of GF-6 and Landsat 8 images is only 48.71% and 61.05%. In addition, for each landslide detected, little difference is found in large-scale landslides, and it becomes more difficult to correctly detect small-scale landslides as the resolution decreases. For example, landslides under 100 m2 could not be detected from a Landsat 8 satellite image.

Regional resilience in post-disaster recovery efforts of Merapi eruption based on local wisdom in Sleman Regency

Mount Merapi is located in two administrative regions, namely Central Java and Yogyakarta Special Region. Subsequent to the major eruption in 2010, the Sleman district government of Yogyakarta continued to formulate various policies related to post-disaster regional development. This study aims to explore regional development post-eruption of Merapi in Sleman, Yogyakarta, and formulate strategies that can be applied to the development of disaster-prone areas in Indonesia based on local wisdom. This research is qualitative research, which uses a literature review data collection method. The data were obtained and then processed by using CAQDAS (Computer-assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software)-NVIVO 12 Plus™ application. The results of this study show that the existence of harmonious local wisdom among residents and the Javanese view of life triggered high optimism to rebuild areas affected by the eruption. Regional development strategies that are based on local wisdom are considered capable of overcoming post-disaster trauma and accelerating regional development. It also supported regional resilience goals that were needed to rebuild the affected areas. Based on the findings of this study, as areas with considerable potential and threat of disaster, Sleman and DIY can be role models for other regions to live in harmony with disasters.

Interpretable boosting tree ensemble method for multisource building fire loss prediction

Building fires may cause enormous property loss. Disaster relief organizations and post-disaster recovery efforts benefit from the accurate and interpretable prediction of property loss. To solve this problem, we propose a novel interpretable boosting tree ensemble method (IBTEM), which is of practical significance for providing decision support for dispatching aid and mobilizing recovery resources. First, we fuse multisource datasets including National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) dataset and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) dataset from 2012 to 2016. Second, we construct four variable scenario subsets to select related variables for building fire loss. Third, we adopt Winsorization, logarithmic transformation, recursive feature elimination and weighted voting strategies to create an ensemble of boosting trees. Fourth, we conduct interpretable Shapley additive explanations to analyze the model internal mechanism. The proposed IBTEM is compared with other popular machine learning methods and the experimental results show the IBTEM achieves outstanding superiority. Property value, fire spread and number of stories with minor damage are verified the most effective variables for loss prediction. In conclusion, the IBTEM realizes accurate and interpretable loss prediction of building fires, and assists relevant departments in making disaster relief decisions in a timelier manner.

Accurate Measurement and Assessment of Typhoon-Related Damage to Roadside Trees and Urban Forests Using the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

With drastic changes to the environment arising from global warming, there has been an increase in both the frequency and intensity of typhoons in recent years. Super typhoons have caused large-scale damage to the natural ecological environment in coastal cities. The accurate assessment and monitoring of urban vegetation damage after typhoons is important, as they contribute to post-disaster recovery and resilience efforts. Hence, this study examined the application of the easy-to-use and cost-effective Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) oblique photography technology and proposed an improved detection and diagnostic measure for the assessment of street-level damage to urban vegetation caused by the super typhoon Mangkhut in Shenzhen, China. The results showed that: (1) roadside trees and artificially landscaped forests were severely damaged; however, the naturally occurring urban forest was less affected by the typhoon. (2) The vegetation height of roadside trees decreased by 20–30 m in most areas, and that of artificially landscaped forests decreased by 5–15 m; however, vegetation height in natural forest areas did not change significantly. (3) The real damage to vegetation caused by the typhoon is better reflected by measuring the change in vegetation height. Our study validates the use of UAV remote sensing to accurately measure and assess the damage caused by typhoons to roadside trees and urban forests. These findings will help city planners to design more robust urban landscapes that have greater disaster coping capabilities.

Extreme precipitation induced concurrent events trigger prolonged disruptions in regional road networks

Concurrency in extreme precipitation-induced events including flooding, landslides and associated debris flow result in massive loss of life, damage to infrastructures, and widespread disruption to socioeconomic activities. Despite recent advances in field of risk hazard modeling, we lack a systematic framework to model and assess the impact of extreme precipitation induced concurrent hazards on infrastructure lifelines including road networks. Here we develop an integrated framework to study the effect of concurrent hazards i.e. landslide, debris flow, and flood on regional road networks. Our spatiotemporal 1D simulations of shallow landslides and debris flows in combination with the 2D hydrodynamic model for floods indicate that even highly localized concurrent events have potential to induce widespread and prolonged disruptions to the regional road networks. We illustrate the proposed framework’s application to assess the functionality loss from the individual and concurrent events induced by extreme precipitation. Our results show that not accounting for concurrence in these correlated hazards could result in underestimation of functionality losses by 71, which in turn can undermine the pre-disaster preparedness and post-disaster recovery efforts.

Social entrepreneurship, co-production, and post-disaster recovery.

Post-disaster recovery requires co-production; that is, the inputs of citizens are essential for successful community recovery to occur. Citizens contribute to post-disaster recovery by volunteering, taking on consultative and decision-making roles within their communities, and directly participating in post-disaster reconstruction efforts. Without meaning ful contributions from citizens-the intended beneficiaries-unilateral efforts by public officials and authorities will inevitably fail. This study shows that social entrepreneurs can thus play a critical role in spurring post-disaster recovery by facilitating co-production. It focuses on the role of social entrepreneurs after disasters and centres on one rural village, Giranchaur Namuna Basti in the Sindhupalchowk District of Nepal. Specifically, the study uses the case of the Dhurmus Suntali Foundation's Namuna village project in Giranchaur following the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck on 25 April 2015 to examine the pivotal role that social entrepreneurs assume in promoting voluntary activities, community engagement, and participation in post-disaster recovery efforts.

EKSISTENSI KOMUNIKASI TERHADAP UPAYA PEMULIHAN SOSIAL EKONOMI PASCA BENCANA DI KABUPATEN LUWU UTARA

Communication has always been a medium for every human being to coordinate or interact socially, whether in the face of a disaster or not. It becomes normal when communication is needed in post-disaster recovery efforts. Although communication is not able to completely change the overall socio-economic aspects, it is not surprising that communication cannot be separated in every disaster management. Because, communication can present an organized handling system. The purpose of this research is to examine the extent to which communication plays its role and function in rehabilitation (recovery) efforts after the extraordinary fury of banjir bandang natural disasters. Where the incidence of natural disasters that hit North Luwu Regency caused a lot of losses, especially from the socio-economic aspects (education, housing, health, religious activities, facilities and infrastructure, trade, umkm, and also agriculture). This is because many people have experienced a downturn, even parts of Masamba and Baebunta sub-districts also feel the impact. In this research the researcher applied a descriptive qualitative research method using a case study approach. Where in determining the data source, the writer uses purposive sampling. The results of this study are that in this recovery effort there is a joint responsibility (North Luwu Regency government)

Deemed Ineligible: Reasons Homeowners in Puerto Rico Were Denied Aid After Hurricane María

ABSTRACT In Puerto Rico, after Hurricane María, about 60% of all applications received by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s Individuals and Households Program (IHP) were declared ineligible. Why would such a large number of households in Puerto Rico have been unable to obtain assistance from FEMA? To answer this question, interviews with 10 disaster survivors and 15 stakeholders were conducted. The author found that individuals were denied based on their inability to prove homeownership, no contact for inspection, and duplicate application, among other reasons. The article offers recommendations for how nonprofit groups can participate in postdisaster recovery efforts as well as how to advocate at the local and federal level for disaster victims effectively.

66.4 THE EARLY AFTERMATH OF EARTHQUAKES IN PUERTO RICO: ENLISTING THE COMMUNITY IN MENTAL HEALTH RECOVERY

Through this presentation, audience members will: 1) learn about the effect of earthquakes on the previously traumatized community of Puerto Rico; 2) hear about systems challenges encountered in acute postdisaster recovery efforts, especially among economically and politically disenfranchised groups; and 3) learn strategies of engaging community members at the grassroots level to advocate for the needs of children after a disaster.

Instilling Participatory Planning in Disaster Resilience Measures: Recovery of Tsunami-affected Communities in Banda Aceh, Indonesia

Strategically, if community improvement is to become an important priority in post-disaster recovery efforts, then the spectrum of recovery must be widened to instill disaster resilience measures. In fact, to achieve this goal all efforts should be participatory in the approaches and adopt empowerment as a strategic objective. In post-tsunami areas in Aceh, Indonesia, the Village Planning Guidelines are designed, not only to rebuild the village physically, but also to instill disaster response measures where the ultimate goal is to ensure that the community is self-reliant, highly-motivated and action-oriented. Significantly, the inculcation of such positive attributes in the community will prepare them well for disaster mitigation in the future; in such way that the community enable to carry out effective and appropriate reconstruction stages in comprehensive recovery process. Thus, this study evaluates whether chosen participatory approach in village planning process is capable to empower the affected-community in Banda Aceh. Through survey and personal interview of forty respondents from four most-devastated villages, answers for twenty-two questions derived from five variables as criteria of effective facilitation process, resulted that the community agreed facilitation approaches succeeded to encourage the affected-community to involve actively in planning process. However, answers for twelve questions from three variables of effective empowerment process showed that the community gained empowerment simply to an extent. This is a confirmation to general opinion that facilitation needs longer time in its process to empower community. For this reason, further research is expected to develop specific post-disaster participatory approaches in effort to evolve the capability-development level of affected-community.

Social Capital and Disaster Resilience Nexus: A Study of Flash Flood Recovery in Jeddah City

Governments, researchers, and humanitarian agencies have increasingly focused on reducing disaster impacts and enhancing the resilience of individuals, households, and communities, as the human and economic costs of natural disaster events have dramatically increased over the past century. Achieving resilience in a disaster context means the ability to survive future natural disasters with minimum loss of life and property as well as the ability to create a greater sense of place among residents, a stronger, more diverse economy, and a more economically integrated and diverse population. However, less attention has been paid to the significance of social capital in a post-disaster context and its contribution in building community resilience. It is very obvious that the contribution of social capital to post-disaster resilience in a Middle Eastern/Saudi Arabian context is virtually unknown. With a focus on the Saudi Arabian context, this research paper develops a social capital framework centered on resilience and post-disaster recovery. To conduct this study, a holistic approach to data collection is followed through questionnaire surveys, structured and non-structured interviews with citizens, and informal discussions with government and major stakeholders related to flash flood disaster management in the City of Jeddah. It is interesting to note that several religious institutions have played important roles in evacuating people and providing help for a quick recovery. In addition, government organizations are taking the recovery process seriously by providing necessary help in the flood-stricken areas. Within the scope of the given framework, the research explores and evaluates the role of social capital in post-disaster recovery efforts through a case study of the 2009 and 2011 Jeddah flash floods.

A comparative study of land price estimation and mapping using regression kriging and machine learning algorithms across Fukushima prefecture, Japan

Finding accurate methods for estimating and mapping land prices at the macro-scale based on publicly accessible and low-cost spatial data is an essential step in producing a meaningful reference for regional planners. This asset would assist them in making economically justified decisions in favor of key investors for development projects and post-disaster recovery efforts. Since 2005, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport of Japan has made land price data open to the public in the form of observations at dispersed locations. Although this data is useful, it does not provide complete information at every site for all market participants. Therefore, estimating and mapping land prices based on sound statistical theories is required. This paper presents a comparative study of spatial prediction of land prices in 2015 in Fukushima prefecture based on geostatistical methods and machine learning algorithms. Land use, elevation, and socioeconomic factors, including population density and distance to railway stations, were used for modeling. Results show the superiority of the random forest algorithm. Overall, land prices are distributed unevenly across the prefecture with the most expensive land located in the western region characterized by flat topography and the availability of well-connected and highly dense economic hotspots.

Governing community relocation after major disasters: An analysis of three different approaches and its outcomes in Asia

Over the past decade, post-disaster recovery efforts have increasingly aimed to relocate communities, with the idea that well-designed plans and implementation will lead to increased resilience. While the rationale has been that relocating away from hazards will reduce the risk of future devastation, in practice relocation has long been the least favored policy option. Communities targeted for relocation are often disadvantaged to begin with, and relocation disturbs their social networks and economic well-being, pushing them further into destitution. In light of this, it is important to understand good relocation governance, particularly ways in which local governments carry out relocation with local actors, and especially considering increasing rates of post-disaster relocation efforts.This paper focuses on three recovery cases – earthquake and tsunamis in Tohoku (Japan), storm surge in Leyte (the Philippines), and volcanic eruption in Yogyakarta (Indonesia) – to examine different governmental approaches to community relocation. Specifically, it explores how program design and governance structure impacts implementation and success of community relocation, and how that effects community engagement and the ultimate outcomes of relocation in a long-term.Cross-comparison analysis of governance suggests six findings. First, housing programs that existed pre-disaster are the most likely mechanisms to be used for community relocation post-disaster, as it is difficult to quickly reconfigure relocation programs. Second, governance structure and stability greatly influence the relocation process, which in turn affects social networks and sentiments of those relocating. Third, the way in which incentives are allocated affect the responsibility of recipients toward relocation actions. Fourth, governments' monitoring of community relocation could influence projects' speed, but not the quality of resettlement outcomes. Fifth, the way governments and communities approach relocation are largely a result of their local culture, thus, considering and adapting the local philosophy increases community buy-in. Lastly, actively involving communities in relocation governance is important for their continued investment in the new sites. In sum, a revised model of governance supporting holistic “life rebuilding”, rather than solely “rehousing”, in the societal system is critical, and stresses the importance of governance structured to center communities within the decision-making process.