Accounting for long-term requirements in post-disaster housing

Natural disasters often result in wide-scale property damage. This then necessitates reconstruction programmes during the aftermath, to repair damaged properties and to provide new properties where required. Research has shown that permanent re-construction following a natural disaster is often inefficiently managed, uncoordinated, and importantly overlooks the long term requirements of the affected community. How such housing provisions perform in the long-term has received limited attention as the emphasis is often on short to medium term recovery during the aftermath. Following the 2004 Asian Tsunami, thousands of houses were damaged/destroyed and were re-built in Sri Lanka. As these housing schemes have now been in place for a reasonable period of time, this provides a unique opportunity to study how the schemes have performed since completion, and the level of occupant satisfaction in the long term. Lessons to be learned can help shape post-disaster housing re-construction policy and practice, to ensure their performance and user satisfaction in the long-term. This initial discussion paper seeks to set the context for this proposed research