@article {bnh-6568,
title = {Barriers and enablers in the long term recovery of communities affected by natural hazards: a review of the literature},
number = {534},
year = {2020},
month = {01/2020},
institution = {Bushfire \& Natural Hazards CRC},
address = {Melbourne},
abstract = {
This report for the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC reviews Australian and international literature on the long term recovery of communities that have been impacted by natural hazards.\ Previous reviews have considered the immediate, short and medium term recovery and to a lesser extent long term recovery.\ However, none have focused upon the barriers and the enablers of effective long term recovery.\ This is the focus of this literature review.
\
The review addressed three key areas:
1)\ \ \ what does the literature say is {\textquoteleft}long-term{\textquoteright} in disaster recovery and how does that play out in disasters;
2)\ \ \ what has been done well in disaster recovery (i.e. What has been shown to have benefits for community recovery); and,
3)\ \ \ what are the key messages for successful long term disaster recovery?
\
The approach required a review of literature that documented and discussed the problems that can arise within a recovery phase that can determine the barriers and enablers for effective long term recovery.\ This necessarily includes consideration of the short term recovery efforts as decisions made in the short term inevitably impact upon future outcomes.
The key findings were:
- Research into disaster recovery has been dominated by research on disaster planning, prevention and response, and there has been a dearth of research on long term recovery. Thus research needs to focus on long term recovery as the costs, both financial and social, are significant.
- Recovery in the long term is a complex process with no clear end point. The process is not linear from short term to long term recovery, and nor are the same actors involved in short term and long term recovery.\ Rather there is a transition period between the purpose of long-term disaster recovery and actual implementation because recovery needs and progression changes over time.\
- Local communities and their associated capitals are the core of successful recovery and thus community engagement needs to be central to immediate, short, medium and long term recovery policy and practice.
- There is a need for a greater focus on restoration of environment and the community in line with the traditional response to restoration of the built environment.
- Importantly there is a need to develop national monitoring and evaluation framework for long term recovery as most evaluations focus on the immediate response and short term response and lack consistency. The framework needs to evaluate the process as well as the outcomes to assess the effectiveness, efficiency and appropriateness of post-disaster responses.
},
keywords = {communities, hazard response, literature review, Natural hazards, recovery},
issn = {534},
author = {Phil Morley and Elaine Barclay and Melissa Parsons}
}