Author Description

Post disaster recovery is an important issue, which is often ignored. For a large scale disaster, the humanitarian needs often dominate over other needs like environmental social or economic issues. Many of the decisions are taken hastily, and without proper survey and consultation. Time is also a critical issue, where the speedy recovery and quality of recovery process often clashes. Post disaster relocation is not a desirable option, but due to unavoidable circumstances (like enhancement of new regulation like coastal buffer zone, or destruction of infrastructure and/or ecosystem), it sometimes become inevitable to make the relocation decision. The key to relocation is its sustainability, which is how to ensure that the relocated people stay in the same place for longer time. Local people s livelihoods and attachment to the original place often becomes a major obstacle to the sustainability of relocation programs. Although this is a hard decision, when taken, the key point is how to implement a sustainable and adaptive resettlement/relocation program. This is the key topic of this book. Citing the examples from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, the book provides in-depth analysis with specific examples on how to ensure sustainable and adaptive resettlement. Human resettlement is specifically emphasized to highlight the people and community oriented approaches and needs. The book consists of seven chapters. The Chapter 1 outlines the problems and approaches, while Chapter 2 provides an analysis mainly from the literature review, and identifies the key problems and potentials of relocation programs. The chapter identifies a few political, social, economic and cultural factors. In Chapter 3, the book describes the experiences of Sri Lanka in three relocated villages. Comparing the conditions of before and after the relocation, the chapter identifies the common issues in three villages. Chapter 4 does the same analysis in the Tamil Nadu state of India. Comparing the cond