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Post-tsunami recovery in Tamil Nadu, India: combined social and infrastructural outcomes

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Abstract

Recent disasters have highlighted the need to better understand why communities recover differently from the same disaster. This research aims to study what pre- and post-disaster conditions lead to infrastructural and social recovery. We collected data from 15 villages in India that were affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami through observations, interviews, and secondary sources on pre-disaster community conditions, post-disaster strategies, and infrastructural and social recovery outcomes. We examined conditions posited to affect recovery and analyzed the data using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. There were multiple pathways to infrastructural and social recovery, but strong access to government resources and good recovery agency coordination were necessary in all pathways. A lack of social vulnerability, recovery agency embeddedness, and contracting agency oversight were also important. Through this research, we extend theories of community resilience and vulnerability by linking both pre- and post-disaster conditions to multi-sector recovery outcomes. Using these findings, practitioners can target specific dimensions of community resilience prior to disasters and target successful post-disaster strategies to contribute to recovery.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by National Science Foundation Grant No. 1200422. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The work was also funded in part by the Mortenson Center in Engineering for Developing Communities. The authors also thank our NGO partner, BEDROC, and translator for their support during my time in India.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. AAAS Science & Technology Fellow, Washington, DC, USA

    Elizabeth Jordan

  2. Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado at Boulder, 428 UCB, Boulder, CO, 80309-0428, USA

    Amy Javernick-Will

  3. Department of Sociology and Institute of Behavioral Science, Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, 80302, USA

    Kathleen Tierney

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  1. Elizabeth Jordan
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  2. Amy Javernick-Will
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Correspondence to Elizabeth Jordan.

Appendices

Appendix 1

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Table 3 Calibration
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Appendix 2

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Table 4 Truth table
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Jordan, E., Javernick-Will, A. & Tierney, K. Post-tsunami recovery in Tamil Nadu, India: combined social and infrastructural outcomes. Nat Hazards 84, 1327–1347 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-016-2489-4

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