Lee S. Bosher

Disaster risk reduction and 'built-in' resilience: towards overarching principles for construction practice.

The emerging emphasis on disaster risk reduction has broadened the range of experts whose knowledge must be garnered to resolve complex socio-technical challenges. This paper examines the role and position of the construction sector for addressing these concerns. Specifically, it examines the recursive nature of practices within the built environment, which can be seen as deeply ingraining fragmented approaches to the development process. These, in turn, render the industry a difficult arena within which to enact structural and cultural change. Based on a wide body of literature on resiliency a set of overarching principles are proffered to help inform efforts to overcome some of the barriers to creating a more resilient built environment. It is argued that these principles offer a point of departure for embedding resilience considerations at both project and institutional levels, although real change would demand challenging some of the conventions that currently underpin construction development.

Built‐in resilience to disasters: a pre‐emptive approach

Purpose – Professions involved with the construction industry need to become more aware of disaster risk management (DRM) activities if lessons are to be learned from the past and a resilient built environment attained in the future. This study aims to focus on identifying which construction‐associated stakeholders should be involved with DRM initiatives in the UK, and when these stakeholders should be involved. This research is thereby unique and a key step in the longer‐term aim of identifying how stakeholders should be involved and what issues they need to address regarding the integration of DRM into construction decision making.Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents the findings of a UK‐wide questionnaire survey, semi‐structured interviews and a validation exercise involving a range of professionals from construction, planning, insurance, emergency management and local/national government agencies.Findings – This research identifies the key construction stakeholders that should be responsi...

Built-in resilience through disaster risk reduction: operational issues

It has been argued that the broad range of people responsible for the delivery, operation and maintenance of the built environment need to become more proactively involved in making the built environment resilient to a wide range of known and unforeseen hazards and threats. Accordingly, the (actual and potential) roles of a wide range of stakeholders associated with the integration of disaster risk reduction into the (re-)development of the built environment are examined. A review of literature, government data and interviews with key stakeholders in England highlights that despite regulatory intentions to increase local resilience through the use of public and private sector stakeholders, a number of structural and operational obstacles exist. A range of strategies can be employed to overcome these obstacles: revisions to building codes, tightening planning policy, improving professional training, clarifying roles and missions, enabling complementary bottom-up and top-down approaches, and the provision of good-practice guidance about the broad range of structural and non-structural risk reduction measures. Many of the operational challenges are non-structural and require a coherent, overarching strategy: changing and aligning the social understandings and practices in civil society, government and built environment stakeholders.

Attaining improved resilience to floods: a proactive multi‐stakeholder approach

Purpose – There is a need to proactively address strategic weaknesses in protecting the built environment from a range of hazards. This paper seeks to focus on the mitigation for flood hazards in the UK; particularly in understanding the extent of the problem, collating key guidance and legislation related to flood hazard mitigation, identifying who the key construction decision makers are and the most opportune stages of the Design‐Construction‐Operation Process when they need to make their key decisions.Design/methodology/approach – A pluralistic research design was adopted for the study, which included a UK‐wide questionnaire survey and a set of semi‐structured interviews involving a range of professionals from construction, planning, insurance, emergency management and local/national government agencies was undertaken.Findings – Despite the publication of a range of guidance on flood hazard mitigation in the UK there is still insufficient evidence that key construction stakeholders are playing an acti...

Household and Governmental Perceptions of Risk: Implications for the Appropriateness of Housing Provision in South India

Disasters are increasing, affecting more people globally and imposing larger economic losses for affected areas. Typically, the poorest and most marginalised members of society are disproportionately affected by such events, impinging upon their ability to cope with everyday life and improve their socio-economic status. The outputs from a three-year project in Andhra Pradesh are presented, providing a context specific, but nonetheless important, insight into how risk perceptions can have an impact upon local development. By assessing the disparities between existing risks and the risk perceptions of householders, government and non-governmental officials, evidence is provided that questions the day-to-day suitability of the risk responses. The case study highlights limited risk management strategies due to inadequate availability of insurance cover in the villages while ultimately illustrating the pitfalls of ill-conceived and overly technocratic approaches to housing development.

A case of inappropriately targeted vulnerability reduction initiatives in Andhra Pradesh, India?

Purpose - The paper seeks to assess the influence and effectiveness of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in targeting and aiding “communities” to reduce their socio-economic vulnerability to infrequent large-scale and common everyday crises in coastal Andhra Pradesh. Design/methodology/approach - Data collection included 342 questionnaires with village inhabitants, local and regional government officials and personnel managing and working for local NGOs. To add qualitative detail to the quantitative data that were collected, 308 “everyday” sociograms, 294 “crisis” sociograms, and 34 semi-structured interviews were also conducted. Findings - The research identifies that NGOs in the study areas do not operate in multi-caste villages, apparently because they prefer to operate in relatively homogeneous single-caste villages. The implications are that some of the most vulnerable members of society, such as the marginalised “communities” that partially constitute multi-caste villages, do not receive the support they need. Research limitations/implications - This study focuses on a specific region of Andhra Pradesh with the consequence that the findings are potentially very context-specific. Nonetheless, the findings highlight a fundamental flaw in the way many NGOs operate in this region, through the targeting of perceived “easy cases”, and this is a matter that development agencies should consider and further investigate. Originality/value - This paper will be of value to researchers and practitioners seeking to gain a better understanding of NGOs and the way some of them operate. The paper recommends a number of ways that the observed inefficiencies could be addressed.

Disaster Risk Reduction for the Built Environment

This highly-illustrated text book provides a broad range of examples, case studies and thinking points that help the reader to consider how DRR approaches might be adapted for differing contexts.

Construction in Barbados: keeping natural hazards in mind?

Purpose – Employing a case study of Barbados, the purpose of this paper is to highlight key stakeholders involved in the construction sector, discusses the roles of construction stakeholders in disaster risk reduction (DRR) and the key stages of the construction process where proactive DRR inputs could be made, The following objectives are addressed: to describe the main natural hazards in Barbados; to reveal key stakeholders involved in the decision making during the design, construction and operation process (DCOP) and DRR process; to discuss the roles of construction stakeholders in DRR and the key stages of the DCOP where proactive DRR inputs could be made; to emphasise the main barriers to the implementation of DRR in the Barbados’ construction sector. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative case study methodology, that includes semi-structured interviews with construction stakeholders in Barbados, a critical review of relevant literature and media coverage of natural hazards, and construction si...

Urban Resilience and Sustainability: The Role of a Local Resilience Forum in England

Whilst being a large contributor of greenhouse gas emissions, the urban environment is prone to impacts of hazards, threats and major accidents. It is crucial to plan, design, build, manage and operate urban environments in a resilient and sustainable manner. The compatibility and conflict between resilience and sustainability has received increasing attention in recent years in academic literature, however its application at local and national levels has not yet been widely attempted. The Local Resilience Forum (LRF) is an important mechanism for facilitating the complex multi-stakeholder interactions required to deliver urban resilience in England, however sustainability does not appear to be a priority. This study explores how emergency planning and the design of the built environment can further both agendas. A range of promising practices have been found that potentially could not only increase the resilience of, but that are also integral to the sustainability of, the built environment.

The acceptability of counter-terrorism measures on urban mass transit in the UK

This study is the result of discussions with 65 stakeholders in the rail and urban rapid transit field. The security and safety of urban mass transit systems continues to draw a great deal of government, media and public attention. The bombings in Madrid, London and Mumbai, suggest that new and “acceptable” approaches to counterterrorism may become important components of how urban mass transit systems are designed and operated in the future. Technical developments in security and counter-terrorism can provide a wide range of non-intrusive or overt design solutions to counter-terrorism. However, in implementing these design solutions the whole system performance needs to be considered. Undertaking qualitative research with a wide range of stakeholders (including the public, transit system designers and operators) the potential acceptability of certain technological approaches is assessed. Analysis of the findings suggests five broad acceptability factors governed by five influence variables. The acceptability factors include that counter-terrorism measures are more acceptable to transit designers and operators if they are tied in with complementary personal security and safety features, and are more acceptable to transit operators and the general public if they do not restrict the free flow of passengers through the transit network. These perspectives are dependent upon influence variables including whether there was a recent attack on a United Kingdom (UK) transit system and the Government’s present ‘level of threat’ from terrorist attack. The impact of these findings is discussed along with suggestions for future research into acceptable counter-terrorism measures for transport.