| Author | Kanji, Fareedali F. H. J. |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.AQ-08-29 |
| Subject(s) | Tsunamis--Social aspects--Evaluation--Thailand--Ranong
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| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Aquaculture and Aquatic Resources Management, School of Environment, Resources and Development |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Series Statement | Thesis ; no. AQ-08-29 |
| Abstract | The earthquake that occurred of off Sumatra, Indonesia in 2004, and the resulting tsunami, impacted the entire Indian Ocean region. It left about three hundred thousand dead and millions lost their homes and livelihoods. This event reignited the concept of community resilience which had been applied to natural ecosystems since the 1970. A community's resilience to natural hazards is manifested in its ability to prepare for impending hazards, recover from resulting disasters and mitigate against future hazards. In response to the tsunami, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), under its Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System programme (IOTWS), developed a tool for assessing coastal community resilience and recently beta tested it in Kampuan subdistrict, Ranong, Thailand. This lead to the overall objective of this study which was to propose and test a modified methodology for conducting coastal community resilience assessments, and to compare the results with those of the USAID/IOTWS tool in order to make recommendations for an effective methodology. Concerns raised were related to the hazards assessed, geographic scale of the assessment, source of information and the composition of the resilience scoring team. The USAID/IOTWS methodology concentrated on tsunami, was conducted at the subdistrict level, included government, local people and other organisations as sources of information, and made use of a scoring team that consisted of professionals from outside Kampuan subdistrict. On the other hand, the modified methodology included all natural hazards identified by the community, was conducted at the village level, and used only local people for obtaining information and scoring resilience. The results of this study revealed that coastal community resilience assessments should be conducted at a geographic scale that reflects the unique characteristics of the communities, such as their material assets and impacts from the 2004 tsunami and other natural hazards, as well as empowers the local people to participate in order to promote a greater success of resilience enhancing programmes. Furthermore, an assessment should include all natural hazards threatening a community to effectively reduce its vulnerability. Finally, scoring resilience, a strength under the USAID/IOTWS methodology, should be done by a team of individuals who are not stakeholders of the community being assessed to reduce biases, and should be consistent for all assessments of a community to ensure comparability. However, the results of this study should be interpreted cautiously as the challenges of the conducting this study included the qualitative nature of the assessments, time lag between both assessments, and language barrier. |
| Year | 2008 |
| Corresponding Series Added Entry | Asian Institute of Technology. Thesis ; no. AQ-08-29 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development (SERD) |
| Department | Department of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources (Former title: Department of Food Agriculture, and BioResources (DFAB)) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Aquaculture and Aquatic Resources Management (AQ) |
| Chairperson(s) | Bart, Amrit; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Gallardo, Wenresti;Soparth Pongquan;Ahmed, Atiq kainan;Crawford, Brian; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | AIT Fellowship; |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2008 |