Disaster resilience research

Whilst the emergency response to disasters swings into action with a relatively efficient process for immediate relief, it has been recognised that longer term need for shelter and reconstruction of homes and infrastructure is slower to be addressed.

The tsunami is an example of a highly funded disaster, where the lack of adequate reconstruction remains an issue two years after the event: an example is that 70% of tsunami-affected people in India are still living in temporary shelter. The paradox is that a major disaster is all too often a development issue and accordingly, the international community has no strategy for dealing with these longer-term development and reconstruction issues. Within the construction process after a disaster, there is an opportunity to “build back better”, ensuring risk reduction, resilience, sustainability and community input that are designed into redevelopment. In this context, the focus of the Centre is to promote research and scholarly activity that examines the role of building and construction to anticipate and respond to unexpected events that damage or destroy the built environment, and reflect construction’s ongoing responsibility toward built environment’s users.

The Centre has expertise in the following areas:

• Capacity building for disaster mitigation and reconstruction
• Project management for post disaster reconstruction
• Disaster risk reduction
• Risk management and sustainability
• Development and construction
• Post-conflict reconstruction
• Stakeholder management and Corporate social responsibility
• Community engagement and participation in reconstruction
• Social impact of reconstruction
• Protection and empowerment of women and other vulnerable groups
• Role of women in mitigating and managing disasters
• Livelihood development, micro finance and community co-operatives
• Knowledge management and integration
• Impact of culture towards disaster risk reduction
• Post disaster waste management
• Disaster management and Theory building
• Process improvement / Production management/Lean production
• Public policy and programmes, governance & procurement
• Complexity science
• Extreme weather events and coping strategies
• Business continuity analysis and planning

The Centre members are currently engaged in various research projects including:

• EURASIA
• ISLAND I and II
• CIB / UN Project
• BELLCURVE
• CEREBELLA
• Reconstruction for peace project
• ANDROID
• Avoiding Man-made Disasters: University-Community Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Project