Environmental assessment after the 2004 tsunami: a case study, lessons and prospects

Abstract

Humanitarian aid projects carried out after the Southeast Asia tsunami must protect, conserve and manage environmental resources for sustained household and community recovery. This paper explores the role and contributions of environmental assessment (EA) in assessing and managing the impacts of these projects. The focus is on community-based EA of small, village-level rehabilitation and reconstruction projects typically implemented by nongovernmental organizations for long-term recovery. Lessons from an EA case study of housing reconstruction in Indonesia show that community EA can provide timely information for protecting water supply and reducing risk of slope movement, and that community participation can provide useful input for site planning, rehabilitating farmland and securing land title for women-headed households. These contributions are useful for sustainable project design, local resource management, and facilitating the transition from temporary to permanent housing. Future prospects for community EA include strengthening linkages among strategic and rapid forms of EA, compliance with EA requirements increasingly reinstated after the emergency phase, and greater use of supplementary or alternative EA approaches such as class assessments.

Keywords:

• community environmental assessment
• post-disaster EIA
• tsunami
• reconstruction
• housing
• Indonesia