Challenges of Post-Disaster Recovery in Rural Areas

Abstract

Although disaster losses frequently occur in rural and agricultural areas, a significant majority of the existing disaster research has focused on urban areas and coasts, often overlooking rural populations and communities (Cutter et al. 2016; Tierney 2013). Our research-based understanding of the recovery of housing post disasters in rural areas is even more limited, again with much of the current scholarship focused on urban areas and cities (Ganapati et al. 2013). Furthermore, the majority of the limited studies that have taken place in rural communities have focused on environmental or technological disasters, such as mining-related incidents, and not on more frequently occurring events such as disaster losses from flooding (Scott et al. 2012). Rising disaster losses and increasing frequency of events across the United States coupled with a current political climate that does not result in a national consensus demand more local responsibility for disaster recovery, when less federal aid is offered as a result, making rural disaster studies a particularly pressing issue. Even if recommendations to address climate change are taken, communities will continue to experience increasing impacts and will be expected to take on a greater percentage of the burden for disaster recovery (Coppola 2016). Research has shown that disaster impacts can best be mediated at the local level, where the most effective risk reduction measures can be undertaken and the most effective policies enacted. Thus, there is a "silver lining" to shift to more local disaster recovery and adaptation attention. Unfortunately, achieving success in risk reduction is far more challenging for communities that lack sufficient resources to ensure the success of these measures and much less have the resources to fund their own adaptation programs (Haddow 2016a, b).

Systemic Financial Risk Arising From Residential Flood Losses

“…Following a flood event, local governments may also struggle to provide basic services, make their debt payments, and maintain access to credit (Jerch et al., 2020), with their budgets further strained by increasingly high expenditures toward resilience‐promoting measures, such as flood control infrastructure (Gilmore et al., 2022). Small and/or rural local governments are more limited in terms of personnel, resources, and the institutional capacity available to pursue pre‐flood mitigation strategies post‐disaster recovery funding (Jerolleman, 2020; National Association of Counties, 2019). With low mitigation capacity and high vulnerability to financial risk, flood impacts in rural areas may be absorbed by state or federal entities, and necessitate innovative and tailored solutions for resilience (Cutter et al., 2016; Seong et al., 2021).…”

Accessing needle exchange services in disasters for remote areas of Aotearoa New Zealand

“…Furthermore, people who are minoritised often live in substandard or insecure housing that can be more prone to damage from natural hazards, such as earthquakes [55]. Rural areas in Aotearoa New Zealand have additional challenges for risk management, emergency preparedness, and resilience-building more generally as, for instance, limited infrastructural and technological capabilities than urban areas could mean people living in remote areas are unable to fully benefit from the resources made available after a disaster [56,57]. Moreover, remote living in Aotearoa New Zealand can hinder people's ability to reach or be reached by emergency services [58].…”

Impact of COVID-19 on the Comprehensive Resilience of Rural Areas—A Case Study of Jilin Province of China

“…Owing to the complexity, vulnerability, and adaptability of rural regional systems, the resilience theory has been widely used in rural research. At first, rural resilience was mainly used to assess the resilience of villages after major disasters, such as financial crisis or pandemics [14][15][16][17][18][19][20]; however, resilience theory has gradually been introduced into research on rural development as a theoretical attempt to study rural sustainable development [21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. Chinese scholars have successfully integrated the two scientific issues, rural sustainable development and resilience.…”