| Author | Ainuddin, Syed |
| Call Number | AIT Diss. no.RD-12-01 |
| Subject(s) | Earthquake hazard analysis--Balochistan
|
| Note | A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy in
Regional and Rural Development Planning, School of Environment, Resources and Development
|
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | Population growth and rapid urbanization have played a vital role in increasing the
earthquake vulnerability with fragile and physically vulnerable locations. Earthquakes have
caused huge loss of human, financial and property damages. From Quetta Earthquake in
1935, to Kashmir Earthquake in 2005, communities have suffered along with structural
losses. In addition to that Pakistan has still top-down and reactive ap.proach in disaster and
emergency management that results from a small disaster to a major devastation. Building
quality and construction practices remained poor throughout the country as obser-Yed in the
Earthquake of 2005 along with huge property, human and financial losses. Poor
implementation of building regulations and building codes, coupled with poor public
awareness about earthquake preparedness and resistant design have exacerbated peoples'
vulnerability to future earthquake hazards. Therefore this dissertation reflects and fosters a
paradigm shift to vulnerability and resilience thinking in order to build community
resilience in line with the Hyogo Framework for Action. This research is basically
explanatory and exploratory in nature. Both secondary and primary data sources are used,
which include a structured questionnaire at the household level, key informant interviews
and group discussion. The analysis revealed that people are vulnerable to the future
impacts of earthquakes as indicated and evaluated through relevant indicators. For example
the logistic regression model indicated that ownership of the residential unit; annual
household income and family size are the most influencing factors affecting the
community vulnerability to earthquakes. The community awareness, preparedness and
coping regarding earthquake hazard is poor and some socio-economic indicators have
close link with earthquake risk, such as age of the population, level of education and
annual household income. In addition, the results also revealed that community resilience
is very low in the study area in terms of all selected four sectors such as social, economic,
physical and institutional. The dissertation has also attempted to provide a community
resilience framework, which may be helpful to all stakeholders. Apart from the practical
utility, this dissertation has tried to contribute to the resilience literature by developing a
subjective assessment method with criteria for giving weights to different indicators. In
addition to that the dissertation argues that resilience does have methodological issues as
indicated by a number of scholars however, this study has applied the concept in the
context of earthquake hazard that probably has not been done earlier in the same fashion.
The other important contribution of the dissertation is the selection of indicators for
resilience analysis based on the previous literature and studies. The previous studies were
carried out on resilience approach have focused on one hazard analysis but this dissertation
has proposed a set of indicators that can be applied to any hazard focusing on community
resilience. Furthermore the study has also developed a community resilience framework
looking into some problems of the previous frameworks on disaster resilience discussed in
the thesis in detail. This particular framework can be applied to upgrade the community
preparedness and awareness in the context of hazards and disasters which can really reduce
the impacts of disasters. |
| Year | 2012 |
| Type | Dissertation |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development (SERD) |
| Department | Department of Development and Sustainability (DDS) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Rural Development, Gender and Resources (RD) |
| Chairperson(s) | Routray, Jayant Kumar |
| Examination Committee(s) | Ahmad, Mokbul Morshed ;Pennung Warnitchai ;Tobin, Graham A. |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | University of Balochistan, Quetta, Pakistan -
AIT Fellowship |
| Degree | Thesis (Ph.D.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2012 |