2013 Awards for Excellence

Citation

(2014), "2013 Awards for Excellence", International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, Vol. 5 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJDRBE-03-2014-0001

2013 Awards for Excellence

Article Type: 2013 Awards for Excellence From: International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, Volume 5, Issue 1

The following article was selected for this year’s Outstanding Paper Award for International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment

"A concept for a performance-based rating system for home resilience: ReScU"

Orsolya Csilla Bencze, Sudipta Dasmohapatra and David C. Tilotta
Department of Forest Biomaterials Faculty, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

Purpose – Citizens who live in disaster prone areas need to protect their properties – particularly their homes – against the destructive effects of natural disasters to avoid large-scale economic losses. The purpose of this paper is to present the basic concepts and methodology for an improved system for rating the resilience of homes against natural disaster perils. This system is referred to as the Resilient Scoring Utility (ReScU) framework.
Design/methodology/approach – A two-pronged approach was undertaken in developing the ReScU framework. Existing building programs for homes were studied as potential models for a system to rate the natural disaster resilience of homes. Simultaneously, a diverse 25-member stakeholder panel (focus) group was queried periodically, using a Delphi technique, in order to better understand and gain a consensus about the issues surrounding homes, incentives and natural disasters.
Findings – Using the results from the above approach, the ReScU framework was designed with four key operational features: an output that can be tied to incentives; the use of performance-based evaluation criteria; utilization of "threshold" adjustments to represent the variability due to the location of homes; and adaptability to new technologies, perils, and non-perils.
Originality/value – There are few existing programs that offer assistance to homeowners by providing them with guidance on how to protect/reinforce their homes against natural disasters. Unlike these other programs, the ReScU framework proposed in this paper is location specific, performance-driven, and may be tied readily to incentives. These features will assist homeowners, homebuilders, and others in designing, building, and maintaining more natural disaster resilient homes. It should, however be noted that the proposed ReScU framework is a concept, and future work will include testing the assumptions for their reliability and validity when rating homes.

Keywords: Classification, Housing, Natural disasters, Performance-based, Rating system, Reinforcement

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/IJDRBE-03-2014-0001

This article originally appeared in Volume 3 Number 2, 2012, International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment

"Disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation in Indonesia: institutional challenges and opportunities for integration"

Riyanti Djalante and Frank Thomalla

This article originally appeared in Volume 3 Number 2, 2012, International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment

"Urbanization and hydro-meteorological disaster resilience: the case of Delhi"

Sunil Kumar Prashar and Rajib Shaw

This article originally appeared in Volume 3 Number 1, 2012, International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment

"Subterranean infrastructure reconnaissance for manmade and natural hazards and disasters"

Todd White, Samuel T. Ariaratnam and John Michael

This article originally appeared in Volume 3 Number 1, 2012, International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment

Outstanding reviewer

Dr Fatma Özmen