Barriers and enablers in the long term recovery of communities affected by natural hazards: A review of the literature

This report for the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC reviews Australian and international literature on the long term recovery of communities that have been impacted by natural hazards. Previous reviews have considered the immediate, short and medium term recovery and to a lesser extent long term recovery. However, none have focused upon the barriers and the enablers of effective long term recovery. This is the focus of this literature review.

The review addressed three key areas:

1) what does the literature say is ‘long-term’ in disaster recovery and how does that play out in disasters;

2) what has been done well in disaster recovery (i.e. What has been shown to have benefits for community recovery); and,

3) what are the key messages for successful long term disaster recovery?

The approach required a review of literature that documented and discussed the problems that can arise within a recovery phase that can determine the barriers and enablers for effective long term recovery.  This necessarily includes consideration of the short term recovery efforts as decisions made in the short term inevitably impact upon future outcomes.