Publication Announcement: “Understanding short-term household recoveries from the 2015 Nepal earthquakes: lessons learned and recommendations”
I am pleased to share our third open access publication from the Nepal Critical Transitions Project titled “Understanding short-term household recoveries from the 2015 Nepal earthquakes: lessons learned and recommendations” in the journal Progress in Disaster Science. We are honored to be included in a special issue on Nepal’s Reconstruction sponsored by Nepal’s National Reconstruction Authority. Highlights and abstract follow.
Highlights
- Quantitative and qualitative methods linked with community outreach.• Tangible and intangible recovery dynamics illustrated for the poor and marginal.
- Hazard exposure, livelihood, displacement, and mental well-being influenced recoveries.
- Government programs, housing designs and codes, and outside aid provided challenges.
- Policy and practitioner recommendations help recognize and build adaptive capacity.
Abstract
We assess tangible and intangible disaster recovery dynamics following the 2015 Nepal earthquakes and aftershocks in order to understand household adaptive capacity and transformation. We randomly selected 400 households in four communities across two highly impacted districts for surveys and interviews at 9 months and 1.5 years afterwards and returned at 2.5 years to share and discuss results. We found that household recoveries were heterogenous, context specific, and changing. Tangible hazard exposure, livelihood disruption, and displacement and intangible place attachment and mental well-being influenced recoveries. We also illustrate challenges related to government programs, housing designs and codes, and outside aid.
The article is fully open access. See link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590061721000296