Vol :37 Issue No.1 2012 - Open House International

2008).
Disaster preparedness relies on “the knowledge
and capacities developed by governments, professionals,
organizations, communities and individuals
to effectively anticipate, respond to, and recover
from, the impacts of likely, imminent or current hazard
events or conditions” (UNISDR 2009:21).
Indeed, disaster preparedness presupposes an
effort to “design” the disaster response system that
can best fit the local administrative and social contexts
(Davidson 2010), even in situations of predictable
chaos.
After a disaster occurs the resulting social and
economic destruction is manifest in the more immediately
visible destruction of the physical environment.
Hence, the major problem after a disaster is
to enable the victims, whose psychological, social,
and economic integrity was damaged along with
their physical environment, to obtain a new habitat
with at least similar qualities, or even better, at an
improved level (Tas et al. 2007:3418).
This goal is not easy to attain, since sudden and
destructive disasters create chaos and disorder both
for people and for local community organizations;
consequently, administrative activities that have
hitherto been functional, linearly designed and centralized
are seriously disrupted. “This chaos also
affects the performance of a disaster response system
in organizing a timely and coordinated operation”
(Corbacioglu 2006:212). In the event of a
disaster, the focus tends to be on response and initial
recovery, with little long term planning; while
reconstruction projects are procured in an ad-hoc,
reactive way (Masurier et al 2006:6). This state of
affairs is not conducive to sustainable recovery,
reconstruction or disaster mitigation.
Disaster mitigation and risk reduction are
important prerequisites to maintaining sustainable
development because a widespread disaster has
the power to hamper, any ongoing progress and
achievements in the direction of sustainable development
(Chowdhury 2011:399).
To counter this risk the following seven principles
of sustainable development can be applied to
disaster recovery, in order to ensure a sustainable
solution (Rosenberg 2011:178):
1. Balance needs and limits imposed by natural
forces
2. Take precautionary actions that limit vulnerabil-
ity.
3. Rebuild to last several generations.
4. Aim to reduce poverty.
5. Consider effects of damage on surrounding
areas.
6. Make the polluter pay for the “downstream”
damage
7. Ensure community participation.
The recovery process following a natural disaster
relies heavily on a well-planned approach directed
toward both short-term and long-term housing,
while increasing community resilience (Gonzales
2011:315).
POST-DISASTER RECONSTRUC TION
There is a clear humanitarian imperative to provide
victims of a disaster with basic shelter rapidly, in the
same sense as there is a humanitarian imperative to
ensure access to water, sanitation, food and healthcare
equally rapidly. However, the humanitarian
justification for housing reconstruction (a longer
term endeavor) is more problematic.
Reconstruction resembles development in that it
deliberately sets out to re-establish lost assets, or
even to provide better and more robust facilities
than existed prior to the disaster event (Barakat
2003:1).
In the specific case of housing reconstruction,
one runs up against two apparently divergent doctrines:
(i) the so-called top-down approach, which
uses official paths including governments, banks
and developers; and which observes formal norms
for building standards and land-use management
(Johnson 2007:33) and (ii) the bottom-up
approach which relies on empowerment of the disaster
victims (now the “beneficiaries” of the reconstruction
project) so that they can be given the
wherewithal to improve their own habitat. These
two doctrines are based on simplistic views of the
reconstruction processes, and choosing between
them impedes designing properly adapted responses
to the urgent requirements. Top-down tends to
take little account of the beneficiaries’ capabilities
and resourcefulness; bottom-up may risk bypassing
potential methods for speedy and safe reconstruction.
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open house international Vol.37 No.1, March 2012 Comparison Of Post-Disaster Housing... Nese Dikmen, Soofia Tahira Elias-Ozkan, Colin Davidson