Post-Disaster Housing Reconstruction As a Significant Opportunity To

Nat Hazards (2015) 79:61–79 DOI 10.1007/s11069-015-1826-3

ORIGINAL PAPER

Post-disaster housing reconstruction as a signiﬁcant opportunity to building disaster resilience: a case in Vietnam

Tuan Anh Tran1,2

Received: 7 March 2014 / Accepted: 26 May 2015 / Published online: 5 June 2015 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Abstract Housing and climate disasters have a close relation in Vietnam. Cyclones have been seen as the most common and dangerous hazards associated with critical damage and losses of local housing and livelihoods. Besides destructive strengths of cyclones, fragile physical and socio-economic conditions also contribute to increased housing vulnerability to storms. In addition, post-disaster housing reconstruction (PDHR) is still commonly seen as a single recovery action separated from the process of building resilient shelter and settlements in this country. This paper, therefore, examines the issues of disaster resilient housing in the light of PDHR to identify key factors required for a resilient housing system. A case study is applied to investigate these factors with the focus on the NGO Develop- ment Workshop France’s donor-built housing and the people’s self-built housing in Loc Tri Commune as the selected case. The results show that housing reconstruction can improve pre-disaster fragilities and needs to be viewed as one of key stages of the housing development process. Findings also suggested that, to build resilient housing, physical unsafe conditions should be focused at the same time of enhancing socio-economic and institutional aspects such as supporting local economy development, applying building permits for safe construction or improving governance mechanisms that low-income vulnerable families can access local professional services (i.e. local architects and engineers) for more regular consultations towards a safe and resilient construction.

Keywords Natural disaster · Disaster resilient housing · Housing vulnerability · Post-disaster housing reconstruction

& Tuan Anh Tran [email protected]

1 RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia 2 Hue University of Sciences, Hue, Vietnam 123 62 Nat Hazards (2015) 79:61–79

1 Introduction

Housing often represents one of the most vulnerable sectors to climate change in Vietnam. Many authors (e.g. Amaratunga and Haigh 2011; Bosher and Dainty 2011; Johnson and Lizarralde 2012) and implementing agencies (e.g. UN-HABITAT, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and Habitat for Humanity) have highlighted the link between post-disaster housing reconstruction (PDHR) and the achievement of long- term resilience for housing in which demands of resilience can be identified and met in the reconstruction period. In Vietnam, this link is still addressed in a limited way because of excessive concentrations on physical aspects of housing (i.e. adding strong beams, pillars or connections between elements) while socio-economic and cultural dimensions are less considered or even neglected. This paper, thus, examines this relationship through a case study in Vietnam in order to provide an overview of disaster resilient housing and identify key factors to achieve it. Many studies and practices clarify three clear stages of housing provision following a disaster: temporary housing in emergency period, transitional housing in recovery, and permanent housing in reconstruction period (Davis 2011; Johnson and Lizarralde 2012; SKAT and IFRC 2012). However, this conventional process is not always correct in reality, particularly in the small-scale but high-frequency disasters such as annual floods and typhoons in Vietnam where temporary and transitional housing is often overlapped each other. According to ESCAP and UNISDR (2012), the smaller-scale but higher-frequency disasters have pressed greater impacts on local communities compared with the larger-scale but lower-frequency ones in the Asia Pacific Region. In addition, reconstruction after such small-scale disasters, even known as small-scale interventions, frequently generates larger-scale impacts on a wider region (Lyons 2009), evidently witnessed in post-tsunami housing in Sri Lanka (Lyons 2009) or post-typhoon housing in Vietnam (DWF 2010). As building disaster resilience is the key target of this research, this paper only focuses on the reconstruction of permanent housing where long-term living needs and aspirations are identified and fulfilled. PDHR is not only to restore damaged parts but also to improve pre-disaster fragile conditions. Physical aspects of housing need to be dealt with in relation to the improvement of social, economic and environmental dimensions (UNEP and SKAT 2007)to maintain a stable development of disaster-affected communities (Lizarralde et al. 2010; Amaratunga and Haigh 2011; Archer and Boonyabancha 2011). People and their habitat should be placed at the centre of the reconstruction for ‘building back better’ (Schilderman and Lyons 2011). Within this sense, the meaning of developing resilient housing comes closer to the concept of ‘building back better’ given by Schilderman and Lyons (2010, 2011). However, in practice, misinterpretations of this concept still existed when ‘build back better’ tends to be viewed as ‘build back safer’ without careful considerations to other aspects of housing (Schilderman and Lyons 2011). This misinterpretation has led to the excessive focus on producing visible end products of safe shelter and potentially triggered problems concerning social and cultural dimensions (see Boen and Jigyasu 2005 for Indonesia case; Barenstein 2006 for India case; Ganapati and Ganapati 2009). We found that the reconstruction sector is changing only slowly. Many of the agencies involved are reluctant to move from a supply-driven relief mode to a

123 Nat Hazards (2015) 79:61–79 63

supportive mode that is more appropriate to reconstruction. Often also, reconstruction takes place in isolation from the housing context and ignores livelihood issues. (Schilderman and Lyons 2011: 219) In the three commitments of the United Nations for future disaster management released in July 2013, the concentration on building resilience is the key to disaster risk reduction (DRR) in which future DRR interventions (e.g. post-disaster housing reconstruction) are required to promote resilient capacities of at-risk communities, particularly in developing countries (UN 2013). This commitment is used to inform future plans and actions in the field of disaster management including housing interventions after 2015, the time the Hyogo Framework (2005–2015) is expired. This commitment had motivated this study to pursue the course of building resilience for one of the most vulnerable sectors, housing, through the examination of PDHR interventions. Thus, it is impossible to view PDHR as a single recovery action separated from the continuous process of housing and community development (UN 2006; Archer and Boonyabancha 2011). According to Davis (1978, 2011), housing is a process where designers create a ‘place’ with meaning rather than a ‘space’ for protection from hazards. It engages pre- and post-disaster interventions in bringing values or benefits for occupants. PDHR, a full replacement of human habitat after a special event (disaster), therefore, is unlikely to stand outside this process. Within this perception, fragilities of housing existed before disasters need to be identified and improved by PDHR interventions for the outcome of resilient shelter and settlements. Disasters always bring tragedy, but they also open up an opportunity for change in the affected communities. (Archer and Boonyabancha 2011: 351) And interestingly, in the reality of Vietnam, such fragile conditions are viewed as the main causes of housing risks to natural hazards. Vulnerable conditions are usually repeated by people (i.e. unsafe construction techniques) due to their financial shortage, the exclusion of disaster safety in their construction priorities and the lack of technical support from professional parties (e.g. architects, engineers or design offices). It was also supposed that increased vulnerability is also linked with the limited governance of local authorities for a safer construction (i.e. lack of policy mechanisms for strengthening disaster management through building permits or safety-related permission forms for housing construction in prone areas). Significant damage and losses after recent disasters in this country (i.e. typhoon Xangsane in 2006, typhoon Ketsana in 2009 or typhoon Nari in 2013) have emphasised the importance of improving pre-disaster fragile conditions in building a resilient housing system through PDHR interventions. Within this sense, this paper investigated the core issues of disaster resilient housing in the light of permanent shelter provision following disasters.

2 Post-disaster housing in Vietnam

As ﬂoods and storms are the most common disasters in Vietnam (Phong and Tinh 2010), PDHR in this country has been predominantly done following these two disasters. Over the past 10 years, all housing reconstruction projects in Central Vietnam have been implemented by both governmental and nongovernmental agencies. In terms of governmental approaches to housing reconstruction, two national programmes are offered by the Viet- namese government through the Ministry of Construction, called 167 and 716, have

123 64 Nat Hazards (2015) 79:61–79 emerged. These programmes show their top-down approaches where decisions are made from top to lower levels. The 167 programme started in 2009 and ended in 2012 with a small cash supply for disaster-affected families. Families had to add more money to adequately finance their housing construction. Actually, this programme did not target any disaster in implementation because its overall goal was to support building homes for poor households caused by not only natural disaster but also other drivers (e.g. Vietnam War, socio-economic constraints, or heath-related matters). This programme tended to focus on the quantity rather than quality of shelter since technical issues for safe construction were less considered or, sometimes, neglected. Designs of the 167 houses frequently followed the standard designs and were quite similar among provinces, communities and households. These restricted the responsiveness and suitability of the 167 houses to local contexts and actual living needs of each household. Socially, this programme showed its limitation when it equalises the amount of money given to all households even their economic capacities were not similar. For poor families without sufficient finance, they had to stop their housing construction in the middle stages and left their houses unfinished, commonly lack of doors, windows or structural bracings. These also generate more risks to future disasters and potentially exacerbate damage and loss. The 716 programme started in late 2012 and finished in mid-2013 to provide 700 safe refuges-on-stilts for flood regions in Central Vietnam. This programme was an effort of the national government in response to a series of big floods happened in Central Vietnam in recent years (e.g. the historical floods in Quang Binh and Thanh Hoa Province in 2010 and 2011). Similar to the 167 programme, beneficiary households of the 716 programme, were encouraged to add money to a small amount of government-subsidised funding for com- pleting their housing construction. These on-stilt refuges are good for flood protection as they were designed much higher than the highest flood level in the past and supportive to household’s development since it offers opportunities to upgrade to two-storey houses to have more living spaces. In general, there is an improvement from the 167 to the 716 programme because more stakeholder consultation and technical support from built-environment professionals were used in parallel to cash provision. While the 167 programme left the construction done by local people mainly, the construction of flood-protection refuges in the 716 programme also involved some external professional agencies to ensure the technical quality of safe houses (i.e. the NGO DWF worked as a technical consultant for risk reduction). Regarding nongovernmental approaches, there are three NGOs mainly involved in the reconstruction of permanent housing after disasters in Central Vietnam. They are Devel- opment Workshop France (DWF), Save the Children UK (SC) and Habitat for Humanity (HFH). These three agencies have different approaches to PDHR that generate different outcomes of post-disaster housing. DWF was well known thanks to their outstanding PDHR projects after typhoon Xangsane (2006) and Ketsana (2009) in Central Vietnam. SC’s contribution to disaster management was acknowledged thanks to their implementation of a housing reconstruction project after typhoon Xangsane (2006) in Da Nang (Central Vietnam), while the HFH’s engagement was seen through their reconstruction of several demonstration safe houses after typhoon Ketsana (2009) for Quang Nam Province (Central Vietnam). While the DWF prevails the family-tailored approaches where houses were provided based on the real socio-economic situation of each family, the SC offered a so-called community-based approach, and the HFH employed the experiment-based approach through the construction of some demonstration houses. Within the family-tailored approach, the DWF applied ten storm-resistant principles in almost all their houses that allowed the flexibility in choosing design options and 123 Nat Hazards (2015) 79:61–79 65 construction methods (DWF 2010). This approach allows people to actively engage in and control over the process, particularly at decision-making stages. Through the community- based approach, the SC undertook a design process with the involvement of beneficiaries in some consultation meetings and discussions from the beginning. Problems were found in the construction phase where external contractors (outside the community) were hired, while abundant local workers were unused. This resulted in an increase of construction costs and reduced the size of rebuilt houses. Through the experiment-based approach, the HFH constructed some demonstration houses in community (i.e. Quang Nam Province, Central Vietnam) to gain people’s opinions and feedback before replicating the model in a large scale. These three reconstruction approaches indicate various attempts of NGOs in seeking safe housing solutions for Vietnam. Each approach had its own strengths and weaknesses in planning and implementation. In general, the effectiveness of post-disaster housing is likely to be acquired by the approaches which addressed more local responses and adaptation in design and construction interventions. The importance of integrating local and innovative knowledge of risk reduction that is mentioned in the literature (e.g. Mercer et al. 2010; Gaillard and Mercer 2012) has been proven in some practical housing reconstruction projects in Vietnam. Despite their attempts to reduce social vulnerability through awareness raising and technical training initiatives in line with safe housing provision, there seems to be an absence of overall approaches to link PDHR with the ongoing development of prone communities and their shelter and settlements. As witnessed in reality, local practices of housing construction in hazard-prone areas in Vietnam still contain a high potential of reproducing risks to future disasters regardless of the presence of safe houses given by donors/agencies nearby. As observed by the author through his field surveys, self-built houses (made by owners), even next to the donor-built houses, frequently do not follow what their neighbouring dwellings do for safety purposes. What they did is following the same practices as before based on their available experiences gained from past events or inherited from previous generations. To account for this phenomenon, in 2010, DWF did a study to self-assess their projects in reality and, interestingly, found out that the main reasons making people not apply some of DWF’s principles was the costliness and cultural inappropriateness of some technical solutions. Such practical problems also generate concerns about their root causes in which limited resources and capacity of at-risk communities are known as the key pressures (Wisner et al. 2004; Chang et al. 2010; DWF 2010). In the light of resilience, basic functions and facilities required for resilience purposes need to be locally available and easy to mobilise to tackle changes or stresses toughed by disasters (IFRC 2012). For housing in Vietnam, it is the ability of local shelters, householders, local construction workers, and community members to pre- pare in-place measures for changes caused by storms and floods. Within this sense, PDHR is an appropriate response to improving pre-disaster fragile conditions that are mostly found after disasters. It reflects the interdependency between PDHR and resilience enhancement where PDHR is a key stage to build resilient shelter and settlements to future disasters. It is also the key purpose of this paper to investigate the role of PDHR to reaching disaster resilience.

3 Concept of disaster resilience for housing

Among several writings reviewed, disaster resilience is perceived in different ways and, sometimes, is used interchangeably with the term climate resilience. However, an agreement among authors is made concerning its meaning that resilience is the ability of an

123 66 Nat Hazards (2015) 79:61–79 individual (i.e. a house) or system (i.e. community) exposed to a hazard to resist, absorb and accommodate the effects of that hazard without signiﬁcant changes of its basic structures (ISET 2012; UNISDR 2009; Amaratunga and Haigh 2011; Pendall et al. 2010; IFRC 2012). As ISET (2012) and Tyler and Moench (2012) argued, understanding vulnerable conditions of a given sector, housing for this paper, is the key to building its resilience. The emerging aspect of this concept is a focus on building adaptive rather than preventive capacities to absorb effects caused by unanticipated hazards. This is quite appropriate to the time of climate change where natural disasters are estimated to increase and extensively show their uncertainty and unpredictability (Deser et al. 2012). This concept appears to be similar to the viewpoint of IFRC (2012) who considers ‘resilience’ as the ability to absorb shocks, stresses and uncertainties rather than to ‘predict and prevent’ disasters as before. Hence, this paper examines the concept of disaster resilient housing against this deﬁnition and in the lens of PDHR with a focus on the case of Vietnam.

3.1 Targeted housing reconstruction approaches

In the aftermath of a disaster, there is usually a vast population whose houses are totally destroyed. Despite attempts of local governments and agencies to rebuild collapsed houses, there was always a considerable amount of victims standing outside these aids, known as nonbeneﬁciaries, who seek various ways of habitat reconstruction on their own. In research community, most literature tends to focus on post-disaster housing provided by donors, such as the housing reconstruction projects funded by the Red Cross or Habitat for Humanity (HFH), but not many texts discuss the self-built housing which is built by people without external supports. In order to understand the overall situation of post-disaster housing, this study examines both reconstruction approaches, as follows:

● Donor-built where donors help rebuild people’s houses (beneficiary) (e.g. Karunasena and Rameezdeen 2010 for Sri Lanka case; Shaw and Ahmed 2010 for India). ● Self-built where people rebuild their houses on their own without external supports (nonbeneficiary) (e.g. Marcillia and Ohno 2012 for Japan case). These two approaches have been pursued in Vietnam for years, especially after the 1999 big flood. The flood attracted a lot of international attention to PDHR. However, self-built post-disaster housing is still addressed in a limited way, whereas donor-built ones are heavily discussed and praised in forums and meetings, such as the IFRC-funded houses built after the 1999 flood and HFH-funded houses built after the 2009 typhoon. Since purposes of housing reconstruction and stakeholders involved are not similar between donor-built and self-built approaches, it is necessary to identify the factors affecting housing risks and resilience in each approach to gain an in-depth understanding of their strengths and weaknesses in risk reduction.

4 Methodology

4.1 Interpretive paradigm

This study is framed within the interpretive paradigm (Travers 2001; Creswell 2003)to obtain in-depth understanding of different but interrelated factors concerning the promo- tion of disaster resilient housing. Since the interpretive paradigm aims to understand 123 Nat Hazards (2015) 79:61–79 67 human behaviour (Bryman 2008), it is helpful to guide this research in collecting field data in interactive ways to fully understand the meanings and rationales underlying human behaviour and practices on their shelter and settlements. The character of context specific has emerged in this approach. Within this sense, identifying key factors for developing disaster resilient housing for the specific context of Vietnam, as the purpose of this paper, is crucial. This necessitates a careful examination of local contextual and intervening conditions which influence and shape perceptions and practices (design and construction) on shelter and settlements towards disaster risk reduction. With a focus on post-disaster housing reconstruction, this study applied the interpretive paradigm to examine the efficiency of post-disaster housing outcomes within their natural settings in order to interpret human behaviours and actions and social phenomena in the light of meanings that people and the society bring to them (Denzin and Lincoln 2008). Based on Snape and Spencer (2003), it requires the interpretive researchers to view people’s lives in a broader context to gain better understanding and interpretations of their behaviours and actions towards housing reconstruction after disasters. Although people plan and act their sense-making processes individually, they actually perform them from a wider social context where similar meanings and interpretations are commonly shared among others (Hennink et al. 2011). This allows a reliable generalisation from findings of studying individual cases for a wider region where these cases are based or involved. In addition, according to Travers (2001), there are no benefits for interpretive researchers to work on large data sets or to focus on the adequacy of sampling for the generation of some kinds of theory. Instead, they need to know how people in a particular setting perceive and act in their local region and interpret these actions from their perspective. Thus, the interpretive paradigm allows this study to select the case study method to further explore core issues of resilient housing in the light of post-disaster housing based in Vietnam.

4.2 Case study method

As discussed above, the case study method, one of the most common frameworks for qualitative research (Bryman and Burgess 1999), is selected to investigate core issues for achieving disaster resilient housing. There is a widespread agreement among scholars (e.g. Platt 1999; Maxwell 2005; Bryman 2008) that, in the perspective of human society, a case studied often shares common senses or meanings and general laws of a social setting with other cases not studied, and thus, findings from the studied case(s) can be used to make broader interpretations and implications for other unstudied cases. The overall goal of case study is not only to highlight the subjective meanings of an individual phenomenon, post- disaster housing reconstruction as in this research, but also to provide a holistic explanation for its expression where social supports and constraints are clarified and the particular social, economic, political and cultural conditions that shape its performance are identified (Platt 1999). In this sense, the focus on a single case can inform the situation of a wider region where this case is based, based on which the generation of comprehensive solutions is possible (Maxwell 2005; Platt 1999). A project site of the NGO Development Workshop France (DWF) in Loc Tri Commune, Thua Thien Hue Province, Vietnam, was selected as the case study, because it has been considered as one of the most successful cases of DWF in Vietnam and containing unique or unusual features that can be useful to the wider context. Housing reconstruction implemented by this NGO, known as donor-built, after typhoon Xangsane in 2006 was examined in parallel with the self-built houses (rebuilt by owners). This provides a 123 68 Nat Hazards (2015) 79:61–79 comprehensive vision to PDHR, and its links to resilient shelter and settlements. The examination of post-disaster housing in the real situation of this case study area enables the identification of strengths and weaknesses of donor- and self-built housing and key chances and challenges to the development of DRH in Vietnam.

4.3 Data collection

Since this research pursues the qualitative methodology, qualitative interviews and par- ticipant observation, the two most common techniques for data collection of qualitative studies (Bryman 2008) were applied to gather data from the case study area. In this research, semi-structured interview techniques were applied to collect opinions from at-risk communities and external stakeholders, while unstructured interview techniques were used for focus group discussions. Semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions are the two most effective techniques that qualitative researchers widely use to gather field information and data (Hennink et al. 2011). Ten (10) semi-structured interviews with ten households, five donor-built and five self- built, were conducted, followed by two (02) open-ended group discussions with the local representatives and local builders, ten persons per group, who were involved in the reconstruction process before. The themes and questions for household interviews and focus group discussions are similar in content but different in the way to ask respondents due to different backgrounds and levels of awareness of each group of respondents. The purpose of these household interviews and focus group discussions is to capture household- level and community-level information on housing vulnerability, local capacities and constraints, and the potential to build disaster resilient housing. In addition to the semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions mentioned above, observation of housing conditions and people’s activities and interactions surrounding their houses was undertaken to add more information to the dataset and to complement points that were insufficiently discussed or not mentioned in qualitative interviews. This study employed the observation, as a complementary tool, to assist the qualitative interviews through the use of photography, hand sketches, and field notes to record the data observed from the site. In this study, the objects for observation are the settlement patterns, the architecture and construction of the surveyed houses, technical elements and details, and people’s activities and interactions around their homes and within their neighbourhoods.

4.4 Data analysis

Categorisation, grouping and comparison techniques were used to compare and contrast themes between self-built and donor-built post-disaster housing for a further assessment and identification of their strengths and weaknesses towards the development of resilient housing. Matrix-based comparisons such as the use of comparative are preferable. In particular, information collected from qualitative interviews is grouped into each theme to compare and contrast and, latterly, to interpret and generalise into findings. This is a quite simple but efficient technique for data analysis to support qualitative researchers in reaching their expected research outcomes.

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5 Case study description

Loc Tri Commune is located near a lagoon and next to the sea in Thua Thien Hue Province, Vietnam, an area where post-disaster houses were constructed by DWF after typhoon Xangsane (2006). This area was selected as case study. In this community, storms and sea waves resulting from storms are considered as the main hazards to local housing (Fig. 1). Storm winds intensify the strength of sea waves which, subsequently, press huge pressures on local houses when it approached the main land. According to household interviews, impacts of sea waves during storms are more intense and more dangerous than impacts from storm winds because they can destroy house’s walls easily. According to FGDs, about 85 % of local houses here still contain critical unsafe conditions in different degrees. The most hazardous threat is from sea waves. They are high and very strong in storms, may cross the dyke and cause insecure walls and risk of collapse of houses. All houses in this area must incorporate concrete beds and altars to protect the house’s walls. (HI 1) The typhoon Xangsane in 2006 triggered critical damages to this commune in which nearly 100 houses were totally destroyed and over 300 houses were damaged. After this typhoon, DWF supported the reconstruction of seven houses, known as donor-built houses, whereas the number of self-built post-disaster houses was much higher, about 30–40 houses according to local authority. The difference between self-built and donor-built houses here was clearly seen in the roof structure (Fig. 2). Donor-built houses contain more structural elements than self-built ones such as the use of reinforced concrete frames on both sides and at the middle of the house. This makes the roofs of donor-built houses stronger than self-built ones. Household interviews also revealed that the main reason of using fewer elements for roof structures was from their economic constraints. Most self-built households supposed that such elements would cost much more money, while the stability of their houses did not signiﬁcantly rely on their presence.

6 Key ﬁndings

6.1 A need for regular consultation in promoting disaster resilient housing

Consultation here refers to the way of sharing information and knowledge between stakeholders in the provision of post-disaster housing. It was found that there are two main

Fig. 1 Storm and sea waves are seen as the main hazards to local houses 123 70 Nat Hazards (2015) 79:61–79

Self-built Donor-built

(Source: Author) (Source: Author)

Fig. 2 Difference between self-built and donor-built houses forms of consultation that are widely applied by implementers in delivering post-disaster donor-built housing, while one discussion form is found in self-built one (Fig. 3), as follows:

● Donor-built housing

● Community meetings the direct communication between at-risk community, local authority, and external stakeholders on general issues. ● Separate household interviews the direct communication between at-risk households and in-charge technical staff on speciﬁc technical aspects of post-disaster housing (i.e. spatial arrangement, methods of construction, materials used).

● Self-built housing

● Informal local talks the direct communication between local people on various issues previously unplanned for housing construction.

In the design process of post-disaster housing, while community meetings and separate household interviews are commonly seen within the donor-built group, informal local talks appear predominantly in the self-built. Community meetings and separate household interviews become the two combined forms of information and knowledge sharing used by the DWF staff to search for post-disaster housing design options. According to group- discussion respondents, community meetings and separate household interviews joined by them are still the one-off communications that only existed within the project duration. On the other side, informal local talks happen frequently on roads, markets, ﬁelds or in front veranda and end up once all construction works got done. This emphasises the need for

123 Nat Hazards (2015) 79:61–79 71

Community Meeting Household Consultation Informal Local Talks

Donor-built Housing Self-built Housing

Fig. 3 Three forms of consultation found from the case study more regular consultation and shared learning dialogues between stakeholders (not one-off times as in the case study) to ensure that necessary information and knowledge on safe and resilient housing are effectively shared and sufﬁciently perceived by implementers before making any decisions on shelter design and construction solutions. It was also deduced that community meetings and separate household interviews used in the design process still follow one-way discussions where people were invited to answer particular questions raised by facilitators rather than to actively engage and discuss the chosen housing solutions. In addition, community meetings and household interviews were usually organised in formal discussions whose contents and participants were well pre- pared in advance while informal local talks were unintentionally established when people accidentally met within their neighbourhoods. This also explains the different outcomes of post-disaster housing between the two reconstruction approaches, donor-built and self- built, to which consultation initiatives play a signiﬁcant role.

6.2 Economic constraints undermine efforts for resilience

In the case study area, most disaster-affected households belong to poor and near-poor groups whose incomes fluctuate around the national poverty line. Their sources of income are mainly based on agriculture produce and fishery. In coping with disaster, they have limited financial capacity to improve the safety of their housing, especially the use of safe construction techniques for their shelter. After disasters, they become poorer because of significant amounts of their budget spent on housing repair or reconstruction. Many households were in debt since much more money than their affordability was borrowed from others. Some owners reported that they already borrowed more than half of the total cost of their housing construction and were unsure when they could repay these debts. This makes them unable to escape from poverty and undermines attempts for housing vulnerability reduction. After the storm, my house was totally destroyed except for the foundation. Together with our savings, we had to borrow up to 70 % to rebuild this house and we are not sure when we will be able to repay this debt. (HI 9) In eight out of ten houses surveyed, there were always some items to temporarily strengthen the house when cyclones come such as wooden bars for putting on roofs, fishing net to cover roofs, or iron cables to anchor the roof to the ground. They are not surprised 123 72 Nat Hazards (2015) 79:61–79 when the Xangsane (2006) came as there were several similar storms in the past. However, due to economic constraints, they prefer the use of such temporary solutions in response to cyclones because they are much cheaper and easy for quick installation. My family has to buy these iron cables and nets to consolidate the house when storms come. They cost not much money but can help avoid unexpected damages. (HI 8)

6.3 Acceptable levels of safety for cost efﬁciency

Employing safe construction techniques always triggers an increase of construction cost and, hence, affects people’s decisions on whether or not using safety measures. It was found that additional costs for applying safety-related measures are closely linked with the safety level(s) the house targets such as the wind level 11 or 12 in the Beaufort scale for storm resistance. The higher the safety level, the higher cost the construction will be. The appearance of catastrophic typhoons in Vietnam in recent years has raised more concerns to the disaster-resistant capability of local housing. Respondents tend to advocate the increase of safety levels for housing to avoid unexpected damage and loss posed by future stronger typhoons. However, in practical view, it is impossible to build a very strong house to withstand all typhoons including the catastrophic but uncommon ones such as typhoon Haiyan in 2013 because costs to build those houses surely exceed economic capacity of low-income vulnerable households. Even in donor-built houses which received financial supports from the outside, the highest wind level targeted for technical safety is the level 12 (in Beaufort scale). For typhoons stronger than that level, evacuation is the only alternative option to prevent human loss because all donor-built houses may collapse anytime as said by local authority representatives. Constructing a very strong house with a high construction cost is really unreasonable as incomes of local households are relatively low and unaffordable for such costs. (FGD 1) It poses a debatable discussion on what safety levels are acceptable for housing of low- income people in the case study area particularly and in this country generally, especially which levels of wind (for storm-affected areas) technical designs of local housing aim at. It was deduced that the wind level 12 in the Beaufort scale, the highest level in this wind scale, is selected for the design of post-disaster housing in the case study area. In self-built group, this level is unknown to people in the way that how to translate this level into practical construction and what building elements and construction methods decide the obtainment of this level. In donor-built group, this level is clearly understood and applied by technical experts (i.e. architects, engineers) in delivering appropriate housing designs. There are three key reasons for the wide application of the wind level 12 in structural calculations of post-disaster shelters. The first reason is the limit of current construction standards where the wind level 12 is required to follow for civil buildings including residential ones. Second is the limited finance allocated to housing reconstruction after disasters in which, if the house was designed for higher wind levels (i.e. levels 13, 14), its living spaces would be narrower and surely insufficient for using. The third reason comes from the reality where the houses designed for the wind level 12 had few or even no significant damages after recent typhoons whose winds were recorded at the level 12 and above.

123 Nat Hazards (2015) 79:61–79 73

6.4 Cultural appropriateness of shelter designs is an essential

It was found that the spatial arrangement of the house has a significant contribution to the efficiency of housing outcomes. In the surveyed houses, the suitability of spatial arrangements to people’s ways of living is closely linked with user satisfaction and degrees of household acceptance towards design solutions. Self-built houses are not discussed here as their owners are free to decide shelter designs based on their needs. Within donor-built houses, even designed by the outsider (DWF), they still demonstrated a high level of responsiveness to people’s lifestyles. Accordingly, the traditional form of three-compartment housing, locally called Nhà Ba Gian, is commonly seen in the spatial layout of the donor-built houses here. Four out of five houses surveyed follow the form of Nhà Ba Gian. The project team was highly respectful of local needs and allowed us to participate in the project as much as possible. For construction, we self-organised with local masons and all construction work was under a very strict supervision of the project’s technical staff. (HI 3) This housing form (Nhà Ba Gian) is one of the most common traditional types of housing in Thua Thien Hue Province, known as Rường houses, where the internal space is divided into three compartments (Fig. 4). This three-compartment layout offers a balance of physical and spiritual needs of people’s life in the sense that the middle space serves worship purposes, while the side spaces are used for sleeping and the front mixed space for living and general family activities. As observed, both donor-built and self-built owners have used the three-compartment structure as the main house, while the subhouse (s) adjacent to the main house are used for extended living spaces or subfunctions (i.e. kitchen and toilet) (Fig. 5).

6.5 Local experiences prove their value in terms of DRR

Local construction practices here, even still being considered unsafe, have contained some valuable techniques for disaster preparedness. Speciﬁcally, reinforced concrete (RC) beds and altars were commonly used in local practices of housing construction to consolidate the foot of the house’s walls (Figs. 6, 7). As mentioned earlier, impacts of sea waves are more dangerous than storm winds and are more likely to destroy house’s walls. The creation of such RC beds and altars is actually a valuable local wisdom in terms of DRR. You can ﬁnd RC beds in all houses here. Because of their long experiences facing strong typhoons and sea waves every year, people here, by themselves, created this measure which is very effective, cheap, and durable. (HI 6)

Fig. 4 Typical ﬂoor plan (left) and 3D illustration (right)ofNhà Ba Gian 123 74 Nat Hazards (2015) 79:61–79

Fig. 5 Some three-compartment houses surveyed in the case study area

Fig. 6 RC beds and altars work as consolidating elements for housing structure

Learning from this local experience, the DWF applied it in their houses and RC beds and altars could also be found in all ﬁve donor-built houses. In addition to the use of RC beds and altars above, some households also show their activeness and creativeness in disaster preparedness when adding two to three RC beams in the middle levels of the house to connect all envelop walls together and intensify the 123 Nat Hazards (2015) 79:61–79 75

Fig. 7 RC bed (left) and RC altar (right) were found in all surveyed houses (source: author) solidity of the whole structure (Fig. 8). Namely, there is a RC beam going around the house every three to ﬁve lines of cement blocks of envelop walls. This technique is also widely applied in both self-built and donor-built housing.

6.6 Limited governance for safe and resilient housing construction

In terms of governance, there has been no legal documents stipulating or instructing the construction of disaster resilient housing. Short-term solutions for protecting people and property are preferred in current governance mechanisms, whereas long-term strategies for building disaster resilient housing are still in absence. Most DRR actions are based on an action plan adopted from the higher administration levels (i.e. from district and province/city authority). These actions mainly involve immediate responses to and recoveries from disasters. In addition, building permits are not required for housing construction not only after Xangsane but also at the present times. People freely decide what designs their houses follow without regulations, instructions or guidelines (building codes) for safe construction.

7 Discussion

In Loc Tri Commune particularly and in Central Vietnam generally, the difference between self-built and donor-built housing is quite transparent in practice but still receives little attention in the literature. Self-built houses are more culturally appropriate to local lifestyles but often less technically safety performance whereas donor-built often faces problems related to social responses and cultural appropriateness regardless of the outcome of robust or strong buildings. Findings from the case study show that although local communities have increasingly realised threats from climate, responses and measures for developing disaster resilient housing have been addressed in a limited way in Vietnam so far. Economic constraints are often the root causes of vulnerability (Wisner et al. 2004), and it is clearly seen in the case study in Vietnam where ﬁnancial shortages of vulnerable households hinder the improvement of disaster resilience for their housing. The case study ﬁndings indicate the importance of regular consultation between stakeholders to reach resilient housing outcomes. Consultation has been widely considered in the literature (i.e. Lawther 2009; Ganapati and Ganapati 2009; Davidson et al. 2007)as 123 76 Nat Hazards (2015) 79:61–79

Fig. 8 Continuous RC beams go surrounding the building to strengthen envelop walls one of key factors for effective DRR. One-off consultations as found from the case study are not sufficient to reach a resilient housing construction in practice since knowledge and expertise for resilience are not effectively shared and perceived by players/actors. Hence, the design and construction of local housing in disaster-prone areas need to be done in support of regular consultative discussions and shared learning dialogues at important stages to improve decision-making and come up with appropriate design and construction solutions. The case study findings also highlight the necessity to provide culturally appropriate housing options. The issue of cultural appropriateness of safe housing has been widely known in the literature (i.e. Davis 1978; Boen and Jigyasu 2005; Ahmed 2011) as one of key aspects for successful housing interventions. It has been proven by the case study in Vietnam where the conformation of donor-built houses to the local housing forms is a suitable approach that receives a high appreciation and adoption from the community. While local knowledge and experiences of residents have proven their effectiveness in DRR and been extensively applied by the donor (DWF) in the donor-built houses, local governance mechanisms for disaster risk reduction on housing are still limited, particularly to the poor and low-income groups. As highlighted by ISET (2012), resilience is unlikely to be achieved if the institutional performance of local administration mechanisms is ineffective. Governance issues in DRR are widely discussed in the literature. In Indonesia, they are limited to the problems of social conflicts, national security, decentralisation of top-down policies, and lack of political commitment (Seng 2013). In Senegal, governance issues are scoped down to the constraints posed by topographical and geographical diffi- culties of vulnerable locations, unclear land tenure, extremely poor people, limited healthcare and environmental degradation (Diagne 2007). In New Zealand, higher levels of disaster governance were applied with the involvement of national legislations and government acts (Tierney 2012). The case study findings in Vietnam emphasises the necessity of applying institutional and governance solutions to build an enabling environment where the design and construction of disaster resilient housing become possible (i.e. applying safety-related building permits for hazard-prone areas). So far, the master plans of Vietnam provinces and cities where building permits are applied only for urban areas have hindered the use of building permits for peri-urban and rural ones, frequently disaster-prone regions.

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It can be inferred from the case study that, in vulnerable regions of Vietnam, there has been a big gap between low-income at-risk groups and local professional services (i.e. local architecture and construction ofﬁces, or local architects or engineers) where professional knowledge, expertise and skills for disaster resilient construction are inaccessible for at-risk grass-roots people. The main reason comes from a lack of governance through building permits where design drawings must be included, and also from economic constraints of low-income families who cannot afford a hire of design professionals for their housing construction. In the context of Vietnam, building permits are only required for urban areas while invalid to rural areas which are frequently the most disaster-prone locations. Therefore, their practices, without technical supports, are likely to generate new risks to future disasters and potentially contribute to increased housing vulnerability. This poses a more responsible role from national and local governments and necessitates their engagement to bridge this gap and release appropriate policies or standard guidelines for each vulnerable location/region to improve resilience performances of shelter and settlements there.

8 Concluding remarks

This paper has introduced key considerations for the development of disaster resilient housing through a case study of PDHR in Vietnam. Donor-built and self-built post-disaster housing was examined to investigate opportunities and challenges in terms of developing disaster resilient housing. Within the context of an undeveloped country as Vietnam, challenges are often bigger than chances that require more assistance from external stakeholders for resilience capacity building. Derived from the case study, ﬁve key considerations for the achievement of disaster resilient housing in Vietnam are presented, as follows:

● Regular consultation between actors in the design process of resilient housing, ● Economic efficiency of safety-related measures, including the identification of acceptable levels of safety for cost-effective construction, ● Cultural appropriateness of spatial designs, ● Local knowledge and experiences must be used wherever and whenever possible ● and the need for improving governance mechanisms for a safe and resilient home-built environment. This paper also highlights the significant link between PDHR and resilience performances where PDHR should be viewed as part of housing development process rather than a separate single recovery action as before. Within this sense, the role of PDHR is extended to the improvement of fragile physical and social conditions existed before disasters rather than the construction of technically safe structures merely. This paper, through a case study in Vietnam, has concluded that PDHR is a great opportunity to building disaster resilient shelter and settlements in a long term.

Acknowledgments The author is grateful to Dr. Esther Charlesworth and Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed at RMIT University (Australia), for their invaluable directions, supports, and comments on my doctoral research where this paper is based. The author also sincerely thanks the Development Workshop France (DWF) team and the local authority in Loc Tri Commune, Thua Thien Hue Province, for their great assistance to the ﬁeldwork.

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