Community Responses to Disasters in the Pacific Rim presents different aspects of place-making in displacement in the Pacific Rim region. It focuses focus on how people respond and readjust to changes and captures the long-term community development outcomes and the critical moments that facilitate this development. Interdisciplinary and using diverse research approaches, the book includes contributions by authors from a variety of disciplines across disaster research, sociology, urban planning, architecture, anthropology, earth science, and education. Mixed methods are adopted to carry out the research projects that ground this volume, including qualitative research for social scientific research, ethnographic methods and more importantly, Participatory Action Research (PAR) is also included by authors who have a background in design professions and a few indigenous scholars who are themselves survivors of disasters. The chapters are structured in the following five thematic sections: 1. Learning as place-making in displacement 2. Gender and place-making in response to displacement 3. Community resilience in keeping indigenous sense of place 4. Community (Re)building in displacement 5. Transnational Place-making: Talk to the Actor. Understanding how affected communities are recovering from their own perspectives, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of area studies, political science, disaster planning and human geography.

This book presents different aspects of place-making in displacement in the Pacific Rim region. It will be of interest to academics in the fields of area studies, political science, disaster planning and human geography.

Displacements in the Asia Pacific region are escalating. The region has for decades experienced more than half of the world’s natural disasters and, in recent years, a disproportionately high share of extreme weather-related disasters, which displaced 19 million people in 2013 alone. This volume offers an innovative and thought-provoking Asia-Pacific perspective on an intensifying global problem: the forced displacement of people from their land, homes, and livelihoods due to development, disasters and environmental change. This book draws together theoretical and multidisciplinary perspectives with diverse case studies from around the region – including China’s Three Gorges Reservoir, Japan’s Fukushima disaster, and the Pacific’s Banaba resettlement. Focusing on responses to displacement in the context of power asymmetries and questions of the public interest, the book highlights shared experiences of displacement, seeking new approaches and solutions that have potential global application. This book shows how displaced peoples respond to interlinked impacts that unravel their social fabric and productive bases, whether through sporadic protest, organised campaigns, empowered mobility or; even community-based negotiation of resettlement solutions. . The volume will be of great interest to researchers and postgraduate students in development studies, environmental and climate change studies, anthropology, sociology, human geography, international law and human rights.

In this volume, contributors look at response, recovery and adaptation to climate-induced disasters, in Asia-Pacific - the world's most disaster-prone region. Chapters examine case studies from Cambodia, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Samoa.

In the devastation that follows a major disaster, there is a need for multiple sectors to unite and devote new resources to support the rebuilding of infrastructure, the provision of health and social services, the restoration of care delivery systems, and other critical recovery needs. In some cases, billions of dollars from public, private and charitable sources are invested to help communities recover. National rhetoric often characterizes these efforts as a "return to normal." But for many American communities, pre-disaster conditions are far from optimal. Large segments of the U.S. population suffer from preventable health problems, experience inequitable access to services, and rely on overburdened health systems. A return to pre-event conditions in such cases may be short-sighted given the high costs - both economic and social - of poor health. Instead, it is important to understand that the disaster recovery process offers a series of unique and valuable opportunities to improve on the status quo. Capitalizing on these opportunities can advance the long-term health, resilience, and sustainability of communities - thereby better preparing them for future challenges. Healthy, Resilient, and Sustainable Communities After Disasters identifies and recommends recovery practices and novel programs most likely to impact overall community public health and contribute to resiliency for future incidents. This book makes the case that disaster recovery should be guided by a healthy community vision, where health considerations are integrated into all aspects of recovery planning before and after a disaster, and funding streams are leveraged in a coordinated manner and applied to health improvement priorities in order to meet human recovery needs and create healthy built and natural environments. The conceptual framework presented in Healthy, Resilient, and Sustainable Communities After Disasters lays the groundwork to achieve this goal and provides operational guidance for multiple sectors involved in community planning and disaster recovery. Healthy, Resilient, and Sustainable Communities After Disasters calls for actions at multiple levels to facilitate recovery strategies that optimize community health. With a shared healthy community vision, strategic planning that prioritizes health, and coordinated implementation, disaster recovery can result in a communities that are healthier, more livable places for current and future generations to grow and thrive - communities that are better prepared for future adversities.

Even a cursory glance at any map of the Asia-Pacific region makes a striking impression: in addition to the large continental landmass the region encompasses a truly vast expanse of ocean, dispersed over which are thousands of islands. Many might say that it could not be a worse time to live in this region. In the past few years we have experienced not only a number of devastating tsunamis (Indonesia, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Japan), but should not forget either the seemingly endless list of other natural hazards such as tropical cyclones and typhoons, volcanic eruptions, river floods and wildfires, amongst numerous others.

A host of natural and man-made disasters have plagued the world in the twenty-first century, many with significant global impact. The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, the Indian Ocean tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina all affected broad regions with devastating results. The need for better emergency management policies, procedures, and cooperation among n