Building Capacity for Safer Post-disaster Shelter: Leveraging Local Understanding and Advanced Engineering Assessments

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There is an urgent need to improve community capacity to recover more effectively after disasters through safer design and construction practices. To foster this community capacity, post-disaster reconstruction programs must both assist with the construction of safer shelters and enhance local understanding of safe shelter. Little research currently exists, however, on whether this assistance actually results in safer shelter and improved community capacity to build safer shelter. To foster community capacity for safe shelter design and construction, this project: (1) examines how households perceive the safety of their shelter, recognizing that these perceptions influence local design and construction practices; (2) assesses the engineering performance of the post-disaster shelters in future hazard events; (3) compares perceptions and engineering assessments to determine what and why discrepancies exist; and (4) creates a communication design for nongovernmental and governmental organizations assisting with disaster response that incorporates socio-cultural understanding to enhance local capacity for safe shelter. By addressing the complex interactions between humans, disasters, and the built environment in a multi-hazard approach, this project will reduce vulnerability to future disaster events, contributing to increased community resilience and improved quality of life. It also addresses both the humanitarian imperative to build safer shelters in vulnerable communities, and provide critical information for organizations and governments, including the U.S. government, in supporting local capacity for safe shelter. This project will analyze 15 communities and reconstruction programs in Puerto Rico (responding to 2017's Hurricane Maria) and the Philippines (responding to 2013's Typhoon Haiyan and 2017's Ormoc earthquake) to: (1) assess local understanding of shelter safety in multiple hazards, including causal factors influencing this understanding, through a household survey; (2) assess the expected performance of various post-disaster shelter typologies to quantify safety during future earthquake and wind events using performance-based engineering methods, developing a rapid screening tool that can be used in design or evaluation; (3) identify conflicts between perceived and assessed safety of shelter, and why these conflicts exist, by comparing engineering assessments with local perceptions; and (4) create a communication design for organizations assisting with disaster response that incorporates socio-cultural understanding to address conflicts and create safer shelter. The work will address both community programs, wherein an organization designs and builds a common shelter design for all households, and self-recovery, wherein organizations provide financial and other assistance, but shelter designs vary.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.