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The Topic
Sarajul Fikri Mohamed1, Chan, E.H.W2
1

Department of Quantity Surveying Faculty of Built Environment, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai Johor Malaysia (email: sarajul@utm.my)
2

Research Institute of Engineering, University Putra Malaysia (email: chan@malaysia.edu.my)

ABSTRACT Post-disaster reconstruction has been the subject of a significant body of research with particular emphasis on developing countries that are less able to deal with the causes and impacts of disasters. There is however growing recognition that the construction industry has a much broader role to anticipate, assess, prevent, prepare, respond and recover from disruptive challenges. Advocates suggest construction professionals have a key role to play because they are involved in the construction of the infrastructure, and therefore should also be involved when an event destroys that infrastructure. They also suggest that ... Keywords: Disaster mitigation, Enhanced lifecycle, Disruptive challenge, Resilience, Knowledge management 1. 1.1 BACKGROUND Natural hazards, disasters and human settlements

According to the World Disasters Report 2005 (Dynes, 2003), the number of reported disasters has increased steadily over the past century and risen very sharply during the past decade. An average of 354 disasters of natural origin occurred per year in the period 1991 to 1999. From 2000 to 2004, this rose to an average of 728 per year. The Asia-Pacific region has experienced the greatest loss of life in absolute terms and in proportion to the population, due to earthquakes, floods and tropical cyclones. In economic terms, the World Disaster Report 2002 assesses the average estimated damage due to natural disasters at US$69 billion. Asia shows the highest reported losses but those in Europe are considerably greater than those in Africa. This reflects the high value of the infrastructure and assets at risk... It is evidenced that the number of disasters has grown significantly over the last six years. Table 1 and Table 2 summarises all types of disasters that occurred in the European region from 1990-1999 and 2000-2007 respectively.

Table 1: A summary of the types of disaster in Europe 1990-99 Region Type Drought Earthquake Epidemic Extreme Temperature Flood Industrial Accident Miscellaneous Accident Slides Transport Accident Volcano Wild Fires Wind Storm Total 1.2 Eastern Europe 3 8 12 17 37 28 18 6 49 8 15 201 Components of a disaster Western Europe 1 4 2 5 26 19 16 5 36 2 26 142 Northern Europe 2 1 3 8 9 4 2 25 1 16 71 Southern Europe 7 18 1 4 23 12 7 4 43 1 12 10 142 13 31 15 29 94 68 45 17 153 2 22 67 556 Total

Natural hazards like earthquakes, however intense, inevitable or unpredictable, translate to disasters only to the extent that the population is unprepared to respond, unable to cope, and, consequently, severely affected. An earthquake will cause little damage if it takes place in an empty desert. It may also cause little damage if it takes place where people can afford to be well protected. Hence, a natural event only causes serious damage when it affects an area where the people are at risk and poorly protected. Disasters occur when these two factors are brought together (Figure 1):

Unsafe Conditions

Figure 1: Components of a Disaster 1.3 Resilience

The concept of resilience has arisen from an amalgamation of historic developments in the disaster planning process. It has a focus on disaster and addresses the ability of the community to recover following the impact of a disastrous event (Karim, 2003). Warfield (2004)define resilience from the perspective of risk as, the capacity to use change to better cope with the unknown: it is learning to bounce back and emphasise that, resilience stresses variability... 3

2.

CONSTRUCTION'S ROLE IN RESILIENCE AND RECOVERY

Although more robust construction in and of itself will not eliminate the consequences of disruptive events, there is widespread recognition that the engineering community has a valuable role to play in finding and promoting rational, balanced solutions to what remains an unbounded threat. There has been considerable research aimed at developing knowledge that will enable the construction of a generation of buildings that are more robust and safer, for example, through reduction of injury inducing blast debris, the development of glazing materials that do not contribute to the explosioninduced projectile hazards and have enhanced security application, as well as the integration of site and structure in a manner that minimises the opportunity for attackers to approach or enter a building... 3. IMARAH: INSPIRING MALAYSIAN RENEWAL AND HUMANITY

In recognition of the need for a disaster knowledge networking platform to facilitate interaction and simultaneous dialogue with related expertise, the School of Built Environment at the University of Salford, have started IMARAH (Inspiring Malaysian Renewal and Humanity), a twelve month research project funded by Venture Capital. The research is aimed at increasing the effectiveness of disaster management by facilitating the capturing and sharing of appropriate knowledge and good practices in land, property and construction. Due to the broad scope of disaster management-related activities, this initial research focuses on creating a knowledgebase on the post-Tsunami response, with specific reference to case material in Malaysia. The broad aim of the research will be addressed by: 4. Creating an infrastructure for developing, sharing and disseminating knowledge about disaster management, particularly mitigation measures, for land, property and construction; Developing a knowledgebase on disaster management strategies arising from post-tsunami recovery efforts; and Developing case materials on post-tsunami response in Malaysia. ... CONCLUSIONS

It is clear that much work has been done and is ongoing, relating to disaster management and constructions role specifically. Despite this, knowledge appears fragmented, although there are undoubtedly many successful practices and lessons to be learnt, most significantly from major disasters such as the 2004 Tsunami. A lack of effective information and knowledge dissemination can be identified as one of the major reasons behind the unsatisfactory performance levels of current disaster management practices.... REFERENCES Dynes, R. (2003) Finding Order in Disorder: Continuities in the 9-11 Response. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, Research Committee on Disasters, International Sociological Association, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp 9-23.

Karim, N. (2004) Options for Floods and Drought Preparedness in Bangladesh. Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Post-disaster reconstruction: Planning for Reconstruction, 22-23 April 2004, Coventry University, UK. Warfield, C. (2004) The disaster management cycle, (available http://www.gdrc.org/uem/disasters/1-dm_cycle.html [accessed on 22/12/2006]) online