Bringing diverse datasets on societal vulnerability and resilience into assessments of post-disaster recovery needs

Disaster impacts and recovery needs depend not only on the intensity of the physical hazard event, but also on social, economic, and political factors. However, these influences are complex and not well understood, while it remains unclear how various data sources may or may not capture these factors. As a result, it remains difficult to incorporate analyses of societal vulnerability and resilience into post-disaster needs assessments. Here we examine the case of the 2015 Nepal earthquake in order to develop a better understanding of how pre-existing socio-economic conditions may influence disaster impacts and longer-term recovery trajectories. We examine relationships amsong pre-disaster census data, two waves of post-disaster household surveys conducted on tablets, and remote-sensing and engineering risk analyses that provide crucial control for physical variables. First, we found that census-level poverty rates explain additional variance in earthquake fatalities beyond shaking intensity alone: poorer residents tend to live in houses more prone to collapse. Next, we conducted a household survey 4 years after the earthquake in order to examine how diverse aspects of household well-being were impacted by the earthquake and the degree to which people have been able to recover. Our current analysis examines whether census-type socio-economic data, which can be readily available at the time of a disaster, can stand as a proxy for societal vulnerability and resilience in the face of disasters. This study therefore provides an empirical basis for how pre-disaster socio-economic conditions may be incorporated into post-disaster needs assessments.