Contextualizing patterns in short-term disaster recoveries from the 2015 Nepal earthquakes: household vulnerabilities, adaptive capacities, and change
Disaster recovery is multidimensional and requires theoretical and methodological approaches from the interdisciplinary social sciences to illustrate short- and long-term recovery dynamics that can guide more informed and equitable policy and interventions. The 2015 Nepal earthquakes have had catast...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Resilience Alliance
2023-03-01
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| Series: | Ecology and Society |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol28/iss1/art40/ |
| _version_ | 1797853174874243072 |
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| author | Jeremy Spoon Drew Gerkey Alisa Rai Ram B. Chhetri |
| author_facet | Jeremy Spoon Drew Gerkey Alisa Rai Ram B. Chhetri |
| author_sort | Jeremy Spoon |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Disaster recovery is multidimensional and requires theoretical and methodological approaches from the interdisciplinary social sciences to illustrate short- and long-term recovery dynamics that can guide more informed and equitable policy and interventions. The 2015 Nepal earthquakes have had catastrophic impacts on historically marginalized ethnic groups and Indigenous households in rural locations, arising in the immediate aftermath and unfolding for years afterward. Analyzing factors that shape household recovery patterns can help identify vulnerabilities and adaptive capacities in addition to signaling potential future changes. We pursue this goal using survey data from 400 randomly selected households in 4 communities over 2 10-week intervals at 9 months and 1.5 years after the earthquakes. Building on previous research that used non-metric multidimensional scaling ordination to identify patterns among multiple indicators of recovery (Spoon et al. 2020a), we investigate associations among these patterns of recovery, hazard exposure, and four domains of household adaptive capacity: institutional participation, livelihood diversity, connectivity, and social memory. Our results suggest: (1) social inequality, high hazard exposure, and disrupted place-based livelihoods (especially for herders, farmers, and forest harvesters on the geographic margins) had strong associations with negative recovery outcomes and displacement; (2) inaccessibility and marginality appeared to stimulate ingenuity despite challenging circumstances through mutual aid and local knowledge; (3) recoveries were non-linear, differing for households displaced from their primary home and agropastoral practice and those displaced to camps; and (4) some households experienced rapid changes while others stagnated. We contribute a temporal dataset with a random sample collected following a disaster that uses a theoretically informed quantitative methodology to explore linear and non-linear relationships among multidimensional recovery, adaptive capacity and change and provide an example of how vulnerabilities interact with adaptive capacity. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-09T19:45:20Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-518107b56f8e4cc38e1a3858f74d4d9e |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1708-3087 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-09T19:45:20Z |
| publishDate | 2023-03-01 |
| publisher | Resilience Alliance |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Ecology and Society |
| spelling | doaj.art-518107b56f8e4cc38e1a3858f74d4d9e2023-04-03T16:05:43ZengResilience AllianceEcology and Society1708-30872023-03-012814010.5751/ES-13892-28014013892Contextualizing patterns in short-term disaster recoveries from the 2015 Nepal earthquakes: household vulnerabilities, adaptive capacities, and changeJeremy Spoon0Drew Gerkey1Alisa Rai2Ram B. Chhetri3Portland State UniversityOregon State UniversityPortland State UniversityTribhuvan UniversityDisaster recovery is multidimensional and requires theoretical and methodological approaches from the interdisciplinary social sciences to illustrate short- and long-term recovery dynamics that can guide more informed and equitable policy and interventions. The 2015 Nepal earthquakes have had catastrophic impacts on historically marginalized ethnic groups and Indigenous households in rural locations, arising in the immediate aftermath and unfolding for years afterward. Analyzing factors that shape household recovery patterns can help identify vulnerabilities and adaptive capacities in addition to signaling potential future changes. We pursue this goal using survey data from 400 randomly selected households in 4 communities over 2 10-week intervals at 9 months and 1.5 years after the earthquakes. Building on previous research that used non-metric multidimensional scaling ordination to identify patterns among multiple indicators of recovery (Spoon et al. 2020a), we investigate associations among these patterns of recovery, hazard exposure, and four domains of household adaptive capacity: institutional participation, livelihood diversity, connectivity, and social memory. Our results suggest: (1) social inequality, high hazard exposure, and disrupted place-based livelihoods (especially for herders, farmers, and forest harvesters on the geographic margins) had strong associations with negative recovery outcomes and displacement; (2) inaccessibility and marginality appeared to stimulate ingenuity despite challenging circumstances through mutual aid and local knowledge; (3) recoveries were non-linear, differing for households displaced from their primary home and agropastoral practice and those displaced to camps; and (4) some households experienced rapid changes while others stagnated. We contribute a temporal dataset with a random sample collected following a disaster that uses a theoretically informed quantitative methodology to explore linear and non-linear relationships among multidimensional recovery, adaptive capacity and change and provide an example of how vulnerabilities interact with adaptive capacity.https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol28/iss1/art40/adaptive capacitydisaster recoverynepalnon-metric multidimensional scalingplace-based rural and indigenous peoplesshort-term changevulnerability |
| spellingShingle | Jeremy Spoon Drew Gerkey Alisa Rai Ram B. Chhetri Contextualizing patterns in short-term disaster recoveries from the 2015 Nepal earthquakes: household vulnerabilities, adaptive capacities, and change Ecology and Society adaptive capacity disaster recovery nepal non-metric multidimensional scaling place-based rural and indigenous peoples short-term change vulnerability |
| title | Contextualizing patterns in short-term disaster recoveries from the 2015 Nepal earthquakes: household vulnerabilities, adaptive capacities, and change |
| title_full | Contextualizing patterns in short-term disaster recoveries from the 2015 Nepal earthquakes: household vulnerabilities, adaptive capacities, and change |
| title_fullStr | Contextualizing patterns in short-term disaster recoveries from the 2015 Nepal earthquakes: household vulnerabilities, adaptive capacities, and change |
| title_full_unstemmed | Contextualizing patterns in short-term disaster recoveries from the 2015 Nepal earthquakes: household vulnerabilities, adaptive capacities, and change |
| title_short | Contextualizing patterns in short-term disaster recoveries from the 2015 Nepal earthquakes: household vulnerabilities, adaptive capacities, and change |
| title_sort | contextualizing patterns in short term disaster recoveries from the 2015 nepal earthquakes household vulnerabilities adaptive capacities and change |
| topic | adaptive capacity disaster recovery nepal non-metric multidimensional scaling place-based rural and indigenous peoples short-term change vulnerability |
| url | https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol28/iss1/art40/ |
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