Disaster Knowledge Management (DKM) Assessment of Housing Resilience in Pakistan

Despite the devastating impact of past earthquakes in Pakistan, and substantial research on how best to minimize the impact in terms of damage to buildings and consequent loss of life, dissemination of knowledge relating to good seismic construction remains a substantial problem in realizing the improvements possible. Such knowledge transmission is vitally important concerning long-term activities of adaptation and implementation, aimed at improving housing resilience. Work undertaken by a number of researchers on retrospective analysis of buildings affected by earthquakes has revealed the need for an urgent shift towards more resilient and sustainable building practices. Generally, rural construction practices, particularly in developing communities, suffer from inadequate local construction knowledge, and limited comprehension of building good practice guidelines. This study examines the potential impact of disaster knowledge management (DKM) in improving post-2005-earthquake housing resilience in rural areas of Pakistan. To review existing research on the impacts of earthquakes on fatalities, economical losses, and DKM, an extensive literature review was utilized. The investigation also identified that DKM has an important role to play in capacity building and technical knowledge relating to seismic guidelines aimed at improving housing resilience. Consequently, a theoretical framework was developed, focused primarily on the analysis of the post-2005 rural building reconstruction mechanism and the identification of key challenges to effectively disseminate seismic guidelines in relation to rural construction practices. Future research will extend this framework through an empirical study to explore resilient and sustainable DKM in vulnerable countries that have low adaptive capacities.