Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed the government's capacity to provide adequate long-term housing to disaster victims. In response, Congress created a pilot program to test the efficacy of permanent disaster housing prototypes known as "Katrina Cottages." However, implementation was hindered by a lack of planning and local opposition. In Mississippi, residents feared adverse impacts to property values, citing poor design quality resembling manufactured mobile homes as a primary concern. Using standardized local tax appraisals, this study finds that Katrina Cottages are valued significantly higher than manufactured homes. It further reveals no significant difference between Katrina Cottages and single-family homes. It also suggests a strong relationship between value and smart growth design metrics, including density, walkability, and urban context. However, it shows that Mississippi Katrina Cottages are valued lower than those in Alabama and Louisiana. Furthermore, analysis of community demographics suggests Katrina Cottages may be less valuable in wealthy communities.

Climate change-related vulnerabilities in Loíza are prevalent in both physical and social dimensions. The social-ecological systems indicate that a change in one component will trigger an effect in the other regardless if physical or not, suggesting that the examination of vulnerabilities cannot be done overlooking one dimension. Such is the case of transportation, as climate change vulnerabilities in Puerto Rico are exacerbated due to the capacity of the Island to recover from a disaster, mainly because there are nearly no options for mobility aside from a private vehicle. This research intended to describe the social vulnerabilities of the population and asses the physical vulnerabilities of the transportation infrastructure of Loíza to understand how resilience is threatened using the social-ecological systems approach. This study found that the transportation infrastructure is exposed and sensitive to sea level rise, flooding, and strong winds, mainly because these climate stressors cause damage to the roadways and inhibit the flow and traffic of people throughout the main roadway and evacuation route, the PR-187. The study also identified that Loíza is socially vulnerable. Many people belong to one of the described vulnerable groups, indicating that its population may experience hurdles in preparing for and recovering after a natural disaster primarily because the available resources greatly condition the level of preparedness and capacity to cope. It was evidenced that transportation plays an enormous role in decreasing or increasing resilience in Loíza, as it will determine how fast people can access supplies and necessary services to reconstruct and recover from a natural disaster. Adaptation strategies should be outlined alongside the community to ensure an equitable and inclusive approach, as well as ensure assertive and effective outcomes for all the residents of Loíza. / Master of Urban and Regional Planning / Climate change-related vulnerabilities in Loíza are presented in both physical and social aspects. The social-ecological systems indicate that a change in one thing will trigger an effect in the other regardless if physical or not, suggesting that the study of vulnerabilities cannot be done overlooking one aspect. Such is the case of transportation, as climate change vulnerabilities in Puerto Rico are aggravated due to the capacity of the Island to recover from a natural disaster, mainly because there are nearly no options to move around other than an automobile. This research intended to describe the social vulnerabilities of the population and asses the physical vulnerabilities of the transportation infrastructure of Loíza to understand how resilience is threatened using the social-ecological systems approach. This study found that the transportation infrastructure is exposed and sensitive to sea level rise, flooding, and strong winds, mainly because these climate stressors cause damage to the roadways and stop the flow and traffic of people throughout the main roadway and evacuation route, the PR-187. The study also identified that Loíza is socially vulnerable. Many people belong to one of the described vulnerable groups, indicating that its population may experience problems in preparing for and recovering after a natural disaster primarily because the available resources greatly determine the level of preparedness and capacity to cope. It was evidenced that transportation plays an enormous role in decreasing or increasing resilience in Loíza, as it will indicate how fast people can access supplies and necessary services to reconstruct and recover from a natural disaster. Adaptation strategies should be outlined alongside the community to ensure an equitable and inclusive approach, as well as ensure assertive and effective outcomes for all the residents of Loíza.

Flooding is a global challenge that has plagued mankind throughout history, affecting over 164 million people worldwide in 2007 alone. As the frequency of flooding increases in England and Wales coupled with an increase in the number of properties at risk of flooding and the attendant huge (insured) economic costs of flooding, the services received by homeowners during flood damage repair works, have not been spared criticism, Both the Welsh Consumer Council report and the Warwickshire Trading Standards report raised serious questions about the level of service in insurance claims for the repair of flood-damaged domestic property. This research project was therefore aimed at investigating the level of service quality and determinants of homeowners’ satisfaction in England and Wales with respect to flood damage repair works during insurance claims. A comprehensive literature review was conducted on customers’ needs, satisfaction and service quality, flooding and related issues, and the repair of flood damaged domestic property, in order to set the framework for the research and shape the development of the research questions/hypotheses. The study employed a two-phased sequential mixed methods approach, commencing with 20 in-depth interviews with homeowners, repairers, insurers and loss adjusters. Findings from the initial exploratory study (and from the literature review) informed the development of a questionnaire instrument, which incorporated elements of SERVQUAL, the generic service quality measurement instrument. Survey data were collected for the quantitative phase of the study from a sample of 126 homeowners, which was then analysed to test the hypotheses put forward in the study. The data did not yield a set of reliable and interpretable factors of service quality from the three service quality scales used to measure homeowners’ perceptions of the performance of insurers, loss adjusters and contractors. However, of the three key service providers, the contractor’s performance was the best predictor of homeowners’ overall satisfaction during flood damage reinstatement claims, accounting for seven times the combined unique contribution of insurance and loss adjusting firms. In addition, satisfaction levels were significantly different for homeowners whose claims for repair works were completed within six months compared to those repairs exceeded twelve months. The thesis concludes with implications of the findings for practice as well as recommendations for further research. It is argued that knowledge of the determinants of homeowners’ satisfaction with services during the repair of flood damaged property, is beneficial not only to insurers, loss adjusters and repairers but to homeowners as well.

The following is a case study of the University of New Orleans Disaster Resistant University project. The Disaster Resistant University project involved the creation, adoption, and implementation of an all-hazards campus mitigation plan. On August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina struck the City of New Orleans. This disaster caused the need for a reassessment of the original campus mitigation plan. Both the original plan, and its reassessment, are the subject of this case study.

This study examines the phenomenon of student resiliency as it relates to Nunez Community College students who returned to attend school in the community of St. Bernard Parish following Hurricane Katrina. Nunez Community College is located in Chalmette, Louisiana, fifteen miles east of the City of New Orleans. The community is adjacent to the Lower Ninth Ward. This study seeks to answer the questions of why the students returned to a disaster-stricken area to continue their studies and how the students coped in the aftermath. There is a significant gap in the literature on post-disaster resiliency and in particular, the role of education in post-disaster recovery. Twelve students who returned to Nunez Community College post-Katrina were interviewed using a Student Resilience Model as a conceptual framework. The perceptions of the students' post-disaster experiences resulted in five themes which included Individual Resilience, Post-Disaster Academic Integration, Post-Disaster Social Int

The rising number of disasters, both natural and man-made, has created a greater need for humanitarian interventions. Simultaneously, it has also created larger room for disaster capitalism, a phenomenon where certain actors use disasters to push economic interests. NGO:s are one of the main actors in post-disaster settings, which happens to be the very same sphere as the one where disaster capitalism occurs. Thus, this study will examine how NGO:s can work to counteract disaster capitalism. This is done by looking at how Swedish NGO:s implement their work and whether this is compatible with Loretta Pyles’ decolonising disaster social work framework (2017), which is deemed to contain measures which can hamper disaster capitalism. Furthermore, it also delves into NGO perception of privatisation of the humanitarian sector, which consociates with disaster capitalism, which is done by looking at how Swedish NGO:s experience the expansion of privatisations into the humanitarian sphere. The methodology is based on semi-structured interviews with representatives from a number of Swedish NGO:s active in the humanitarian sector, from which data has been qualitatively analysed. The results show, among other things, that disaster capitalism as a concept is fairly unknown among most of the NGO:s, however central aspects are recognised by many. It also shows that Swedish NGO:s are generally in line with Pyles’ framework. The dilemmas of the localisation agenda are examined, where the ambitions are high but institutional barriers hamper movement in its direction. Similarly, the pros and cons of international standards are discussed and whether these are a barrier to localisation. Resilience and the humanitarian-development nexus are highly contemporary matters and are also debated. The position towards private actors and privatisations of the humanitarian sector is contradictive, as there is a general opinion that being private and for-profit is not a problem, but also a general opinion that actors have to work on a principle-basis and not to make profit. It became clear that some scepticism is levelled at private actors from an NGO perspective. Finally, critical aspects of the humanitarian system and potential future risks are discussed, with the main concern regarding a phasing out of Western NGO:s in favour for less principle-based actors from other parts of the world.

<p>Post-disaster temporary housing has been a significant challenge for the emergency management group and industries for many years. According to reports by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), housing in states and territories is ranked as the second to last proficient in 32 core capabilities for preparedness.The number of temporary housing required in a geographic area is influenced by a variety of factors, including social issues, financial concerns, labor workforce availability, and climate conditions. Acknowledging and creating a balance between these interconnected needs is considered as one of the main challenges that need to be addressed. Post-disaster temporary housing is a multi-objective process, thus reaching the optimized model relies on how different elements and objectives interact, sometimes even conflicting, with each other. This makes decision making in post-disaster construction more restricted and challenging, which has caused ineffective management in post-disaster housing reconstruction.</p> <p>Few researches have studied the use of Artificial Intelligence modeling to reduce the time and cost of post-disaster sheltering. However, there is a lack of research and knowledge gap regarding the selection and the magnitude of effect of different factors of the most optimized type of Temporary Housing Units (THU) in a post-disaster event.</p> The proposed framework in this research uses supervised machine learing to maximize certain design aspects of and minimize some of the difficulties to better support creating temporary houses in post-disaster situations. The outcome in this study is the classification type of the THU, more particularly, classifying THUs based on whether they are built on-site or off-site. In order to collect primary data for creating the model and evaluating the magnitude of effect for each factor in the process, a set of surveys were distributed between the key players and policymakers who play a role in providing temporary housing to people affected by natural disasters in the United States. The outcome of this framework benefits from tacit knowledge of the experts in the field to show the challenges and issues in the subject. The result of this study is a data-based multi-objective decision-making tool for selecting the THU type. Using this tool, policymakers who are in charge of selecting and allocating post-disaster accommodations can select the THU type most responsive to the local needs and characteristics of the affected people in each natural disaster.

A transportation system is a critical infrastructure that is key for mobility in any community. Natural hazards can cause failure in transportation infrastructure and impede its routine performance. Ecological systems are resilient systems that are very similar to transportation systems. Diversity is a fundamental factor in ecological resilience, and it is recognized as an important property of transportation resilience. However, quantifying transportation diversity remains challenging, which makes it difficult to understand the influence of diversity on transportation performance and resilience. Consequently, three studies are undertaken to remedy this circumstance. The first study develops a novel approach – inspired by biodiversity in ecological stability theory – to characterize and measure transportation diversity by its richness (availability) and evenness (distribution). This transportation diversity approach is then applied to New York City (NYC) at the zip code level using the GIS data of transportation modes. The results demonstrate the variation of transportation diversity across the city. The characterized inherent and augmented complementarities start to uncover the dynamics of modal compensation and to demonstrate how transportation diversity contributes to this phenomenon. Moreover, the NYC zip codes with low transportation diversity are mainly in hurricane evacuation zones that are more vulnerable. Consequently, low transportation diversity in these areas could affect their post-disaster mobility. In the second study, the influence of transportation diversity on post-disaster mobility is examined by investigating the patterns of mobility in New York City one month before and after Hurricane Sandy using Twitter data. To characterize pre- and post-Sandy mobility patterns, the locations that individuals visited frequently were identified and travel distance, the radius of gyration, and mobility entropy were measured. Individuals were grouped according to the transportation diversity of their frequently visited locations. The findings reveal that individuals that lived in or visited zip codes with higher transportation diversity mostly experienced less disturbance in their mobility patterns after Sandy and the recovery of their mobility patterns was faster. The results confirm that transportation diversity affects the resilience of individual post-disaster mobility. The approach used in this study is one of the first to examine the root causes of changes in mobility patterns after extreme events by linking transportation infrastructure diversity to post-disaster mobility. Finally, the third study employs the transportation diversity approach to investigate modal accessibility and social exclusion. Transportation infrastructure is a sociotechnical system and transport equity is crucial for access to opportunities and services such as jobs and infrastructure. The social exclusion caused by transport inequity could be intensified after natural disasters that can cause failure in a transportation system. One approach to determine transport equity is access to transportation modes. Common catchment area approaches to assess the equity of access to transportation modes cannot differentiate between the equity of access to modes in sub-regions of an area. The transportation diversity approach overcomes this shortcoming, and it is applied to all transportation modes in NYC zip codes to measure the equity of access. Zip codes were grouped in quartiles based on their transportation diversity. Using the American Community Survey data, a set of important socioeconomic and transport usage factors were compared in the quartile groups. The results indicated the relationship between transportation diversity and income, vehicle ownership, commute time, and commute mode. This relationship highlighted that social exclusion is linked with transport inequity. The results also revealed that the inequity of the transport system in zip codes with low transportation diversity affects poor individuals more than non-poor and the zip codes with a majority of black and Hispanic populations are impacted more. Further consideration of the impacts of Hurricanes Irene and Sandy in NYC shows that people in areas with a lower transportation diversity were affected more and the transport inequity in these areas made it difficult to cope with these disasters and caused post-disaster social exclusion. Therefore, enhancing transportation diversity should support transport equity and reduce social exclusion under normal situations and during extreme events. Together, these three studies illustrate the influence of transportation diversity on the resilience of this infrastructure. They highlight the importance of the provision and distribution of all transportation modes, their influence on mobility during normal situations and extreme events and their contribution toward mitigating social exclusion. Finally, these studies suggest that transportation diversity can contribute to more targeted and equitable transportation and community resilience planning, which should help decision-makers allocate scarce resources more effectively. / Doctor of Philosophy / Transportation systems are very important in every city. Natural disasters like hurricanes and floods can destroy roads and inundate metro tunnels that can cause problems for mobility. Ecological systems like forests are very resilient because they have experienced disturbances like natural disasters for millions of years. Ecological systems and transportation systems are very similar; for example, both have different components (different species in an ecological system and different modes in a transportation system). Because of such similarities, we can learn from ecological resilience to improve transportation resilience. Having a variety of species in an ecological system makes it diverse. Diversity is the most important factor in ecological resilience, and it is also recognized as an important factor in transportation resilience. Current methods cannot effectively quantify transportation diversity – the variety of modes in a system – so determining its impact on transportation resilience remains a challenge. In this dissertation, principles of ecological diversity are adapted to characterize transportation infrastructure to develop a new approach to measure transportation diversity; metrics include the availability of transportation modes and their distribution in a community. The developed approach was applied in New York City (NYC) at the zip code level. Locations with low transportation diversity (fewer modes and/or unequal distribution) were identified, and most of these zip codes are located in hurricane evacuation zones. Consequently, these zip codes with the least diverse transportation systems are the most vulnerable, which can cause serious issues during emergency evacuations and the ability of people to access work or essential services. Therefore, in a city hit by a natural disaster, understanding the relationship between people's mobility and a transportation system's diversity is important. Twitter data was used to find the places that people in NYC visited regularly for one month before and one month after Hurricane Sandy. Subsequently, using different methods, the pre- and post-disaster mobility patterns of these individuals were characterized. The results show that after the disaster, individuals had a higher chance of maintaining their pre-disaster mobility patterns if they were living in and/or visiting areas with high transportation diversity. Based on these findings, we confirmed the influence of transportation diversity on post-disaster mobility. In addition, the transportation infrastructure should provide equitable service to all individuals, during normal operations and extreme events. One of the ways to determine this equality is equity of access to transportation modes. Hence, transportation diversity was used as an indicator for equity of access to transportation modes to overcome the limitations of current methods like catchment area approaches. NYC zip codes were grouped based on their transportation diversity and a set of important socioeconomic and transport related factors were compared among these groups. The comparison of socioeconomic and transport related factors in zip codes showed that the zip codes with lower transportation diversity are also more socioeconomically deprived. This highlights the likely influence of transportation diversity on social exclusion. Further consideration of the impacts of Hurricanes Irene and Sandy in NYC shows that people in areas with a lower transportation diversity were affected more and the transport inequity in these areas made it difficult to cope with these disasters and caused post-disaster social exclusion. Therefore, enhancing transportation diversity should support transport equity and reduce social exclusion under normal situations and during extreme events. The investigations conducted highlight the importance of the provision and distribution of all transportation modes, their influence on mobility during normal situations and extreme events and their contribution toward mitigating social exclusion. Finally, the collective results suggest that transportation diversity can contribute to more targeted and equitable transportation and community resilience planning, which should help decision-makers allocate scarce resources more effectively.

Plusieurs études ont révélé des problèmes récurrents au niveau de la performance et de la gestion des projets de reconstruction à la suite des catastrophes dans les pays en voie de développement (PEVD). Ces projets doivent faire face à des conditions de vulnérabilité des habitants, engendrées par des facteurs politiques, économiques, sociaux et culturels. Les divers participants - contraints par un accès limité à l’information - sont confrontés à travailler dans un contexte hostile ayant un niveau d’incertitude élevé. Ce niveau d’incertitude augmente les risques du projet de reconstruction, particulièrement le risque d’insatisfaction des usagers. Ce travail vise à mettre en parallèle l’analyse du système organisationnel adopté pour la conduite d’un projet de reconstruction et celle du niveau de satisfaction des usagers. Il émet l’hypothèse suivante: deux facteurs organisationnels influencent largement le niveau de satisfaction de la part des bénéficiaires d’un projet de reconstruction de logements à la suite d’un désastre en PEVD: (i) le niveau de centralisation de la prise de décisions (jumelée au manque d’information) au sein de la Multi-Organisation Temporaire (MOT); et (ii) la capacité de la structure organisationnelle de la MOT d’impliquer la participation active des usagers au niveau de la planification, de la gestion, du financement et du design du projet. Afin d’atteindre cet objectif, une recherche empirique fut menée pour analyser le cas des inondations ayant eu lieu en 2003 dans une ville dans la région du Maghreb. Le niveau de satisfaction des usagers a été déterminé grâce à des indicateurs de transfert de technologie qui se basent sur l’analyse du « Cadre Logique » - une méthode d’évaluation largement utilisée dans le domaine du développement international. Les résultats de la recherche ne visent pas à identifier une relation de cause à effet entre les deux variables étudiées (la structure organisationnelle et la satisfaction des usagers). Cependant, ils mettent en évidence certains principes du montage et de la gestion des projets qui peuvent être mis en place pour l’amélioration des pratiques de reconstruction. / Construction projects are temporary endeavors with a defined beginning and end, conducted by a temporary and multi-disciplinary team called a Temporary Multi-Organization (TMO). In the hostile environment of post-disaster reconstruction, participants of the TMO must confront high levels of uncertainty which increases project risks. The non-acceptability of project outcomes is one of the most frequent risks reported in literature (UNDRO, 1982; Barenstein, 2008; Dikmen, 2006). Acceptability is related with users’ satisfaction. However, according to the theory of bounded rationality, actors of the TMO - confronted with limited information and resources - cannot achieve an optimal solution. Instead, both project actors and end-users accept a «satisficing» [SIC] solution (Simon, 2004). This study hypothesizes that two organizational factors have an important influence on user satisfaction in post-disaster housing projects: (i) centralized decision making (coupled with lack of information); and (ii) the capacity of the structure of the Temporary Multi-Organization (TMO) to take into account the active participation of users in project planning, management, financing and design. A case study of a post-disaster housing project in the Maghreb region helps us validate this hypothesis. Building up on this hypothesis, indicators of technology transfer (as proposed by the Logical Framework Analysis) serve as a basis to assess users’ satisfaction. The research does not establish a cause-effect relationship between the two variables of the study. However, the analysis of the structure of the TMO and users’ satisfaction highlight several principles, related with the project initiation and management, that can be implemented to improve reconstruction practices in developing countries.

Plusieurs études ont révélé des problèmes récurrents au niveau de la performance et de la gestion des projets de reconstruction à la suite des catastrophes dans les pays en voie de développement (PEVD). Ces projets doivent faire face à des conditions de vulnérabilité des habitants, engendrées par des facteurs politiques, économiques, sociaux et culturels. Les divers participants - contraints par un accès limité à l’information - sont confrontés à travailler dans un contexte hostile ayant un niveau d’incertitude élevé. Ce niveau d’incertitude augmente les risques du projet de reconstruction, particulièrement le risque d’insatisfaction des usagers. Ce travail vise à mettre en parallèle l’analyse du système organisationnel adopté pour la conduite d’un projet de reconstruction et celle du niveau de satisfaction des usagers. Il émet l’hypothèse suivante: deux facteurs organisationnels influencent largement le niveau de satisfaction de la part des bénéficiaires d’un projet de reconstruction de logements à la suite d’un désastre en PEVD: (i) le niveau de centralisation de la prise de décisions (jumelée au manque d’information) au sein de la Multi-Organisation Temporaire (MOT); et (ii) la capacité de la structure organisationnelle de la MOT d’impliquer la participation active des usagers au niveau de la planification, de la gestion, du financement et du design du projet. Afin d’atteindre cet objectif, une recherche empirique fut menée pour analyser le cas des inondations ayant eu lieu en 2003 dans une ville dans la région du Maghreb. Le niveau de satisfaction des usagers a été déterminé grâce à des indicateurs de transfert de technologie qui se basent sur l’analyse du « Cadre Logique » - une méthode d’évaluation largement utilisée dans le domaine du développement international. Les résultats de la recherche ne visent pas à identifier une relation de cause à effet entre les deux variables étudiées (la structure organisationnelle et la satisfaction des usagers). Cependant, ils mettent en évidence certains principes du montage et de la gestion des projets qui peuvent être mis en place pour l’amélioration des pratiques de reconstruction. / Construction projects are temporary endeavors with a defined beginning and end, conducted by a temporary and multi-disciplinary team called a Temporary Multi-Organization (TMO). In the hostile environment of post-disaster reconstruction, participants of the TMO must confront high levels of uncertainty which increases project risks. The non-acceptability of project outcomes is one of the most frequent risks reported in literature (UNDRO, 1982; Barenstein, 2008; Dikmen, 2006). Acceptability is related with users’ satisfaction. However, according to the theory of bounded rationality, actors of the TMO - confronted with limited information and resources - cannot achieve an optimal solution. Instead, both project actors and end-users accept a «satisficing» [SIC] solution (Simon, 2004). This study hypothesizes that two organizational factors have an important influence on user satisfaction in post-disaster housing projects: (i) centralized decision making (coupled with lack of information); and (ii) the capacity of the structure of the Temporary Multi-Organization (TMO) to take into account the active participation of users in project planning, management, financing and design. A case study of a post-disaster housing project in the Maghreb region helps us validate this hypothesis. Building up on this hypothesis, indicators of technology transfer (as proposed by the Logical Framework Analysis) serve as a basis to assess users’ satisfaction. The research does not establish a cause-effect relationship between the two variables of the study. However, the analysis of the structure of the TMO and users’ satisfaction highlight several principles, related with the project initiation and management, that can be implemented to improve reconstruction practices in developing countries.