Measuring the Sustainability of Post-Eruption Rehabilitation and Reconstruction

With the enactment of Presidential Decree Number 16 of 2011, the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Action Plan (RENAKSI-RR) following the Mount Merapi Eruption Disaster, the process of rebuilding after the disaster got underway. The implementation of rehabilitation and reconstruction must adhere to the principles of better development, disaster risk reduction, and sustainability, as mandated by Head of BNPB Regulation Number 17 of 2010 concerning Guidelines for Rehabilitation and Reconstruction. Instruments that guarantee stakeholders assess the degree of life recovery and resilience to disasters in communities affected by disasters are required in order to put these concepts into practice.

One approach to gauge the degree of recovery in disaster-stricken communities is to conduct periodic longitudinal studies (LS) to gather data on households and communities in the impacted areas. With the use of LS, one may regularly assess the state of the population in relation to a number of welfare indicators, including spending, income, asset ownership, and access to essential services, as well as indicators related to community resilience to catastrophes, nutrition, health, and education. In order to have a tool that can quantify the effects of post-disaster recovery objectively, the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) committed to implementing LS in the implementation of RENAKSI-RR following the Mount Merapi Disaster.

Under the guidance and support of BNPB and UNDP, SurveyMETER was tasked with developing the tools and managing the execution of the Merapi LS in partnership with the DIY Disaster Risk Management Forum (FPRB) and Central Java FPRB. The five primary topics of the study are as follows: first, determining the dynamics of change and the immediate and long-term impacts of the Mount Merapi eruption and lava rain disaster on the lives of impacted households and communities. Second, regularly monitor and evaluate the development of community resilience in areas at high risk of the Mount Merapi disaster. Third, keep a close eye on how rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts following the 2010 Merapi eruption are going in regions that are particularly vulnerable to the Mount Merapi calamity. Fourth, periodically monitor and evaluate the development of community life recovery/successful performance of community recovery activities in areas at high risk of the Mount Merapi disaster. Fifth, offer consistent information and recommendations to stakeholders and the government for the formulation of policies pertaining to the execution and reorganization of post-disaster rehabilitation and rebuilding that are sensitive to lowering the risk of disasters.

In addition, the Merapi LS generates "output" in the following ways: (1) Regular data recommendations for the development of government and other stakeholder policies for post-disaster readjustment of RENAKSI-RR after a disaster that is responsive to disaster risk reduction; (2) Comparable data for the Disaster Recovery Index, which is responsive to disaster risk reduction and can gauge the degree of recovery from disasters; (3) Information regarding the advancement of disaster victims' resilience in areas at high risk of the Merapi disaster since the implementation of RR-RENAKSI on the eruption of Mount Merapi; (4) Strategic collaboration required to support the needs for expediting community recovery in areas impacted by the Merapi disaster

Phases of Implementation and Research Design

Field data collection was carried out from 5 September 2012 to early October 2012. The Merapi LS was previously implemented through a number of processes to ensure the quality of the data. These included discussions about instruments, their creation, follow-up discussions, pilot tests, revisions of instruments based on the results of the pilot tests, pre-tests, revisions of instruments used for pre-test results, survey manuals, recruiting field officers, creating instruments for regional listing, training field officers for regional listing activities (ATL, ATLL, and ATLH), data entry on the results of regional listings, sampling the research area, creating household population listing instruments, training field officers for household listing activities, household listing data collection process, household sampling, training field officers at LS Merapi, checking consistency, and cleaning data.

Through the use of primary data collected at the household and community levels, this study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the social, economic, educational, health, and recovery aspects of the eruption as well as the implementation of RENAKSI-RR following the 2010 Merapi eruption disaster. A number of inquiries about social capital, economic indicators, empowerment indicators, and household characteristics were posed directly to the sample households. Given that Merapi's effects extend beyond hot lava, hot clouds, and volcanic ash to include raining lava, particularly in locations downstream, the affected areas can be classified into three categories: (2) Eruption Affected Area (ATL) is an area that was hit by hot clouds during the 2010 eruption of Mount Merapi either due to pyroclastic flows/fall or the effects of heat and chemical gases but did not cause casualties, damage to settlements, infrastructure, and vegetation; (1) Areas Directly Affected by the Eruption (ATLL) are areas hit by clouds heat during the 2010 eruption of Mount Merapi which caused casualties, damage to settlements, infrastructure, and burned vegetation; (3) Areas Affected by Rain Lahar (ATLH) are regions where infrastructure, flora, and settlements are harmed by rain-induced lava.

This study was carried out in four districts—Klaten, Magelang, Boyolali, and Sleman—around Mount Merapi, encompassing 43 hamlets, 35 villages, and 18 sub-districts. Thirty sample households were interviewed in each hamlet (enumeration area). The ATLL, ATL, and ATLH areas were created by dividing the 43 sample hamlets into these three survey areas. The treatment and the control areas are the two research areas that were created from this survey area. The ATLL, ATL, and ATLH areas are among the 40 sample hamlet areas that make up the treatment area. These communities were impacted by the Merapi eruption. Three hamlets—one in Klaten, one in Magelang, and one in Boyolali—are part of the control area. Based on regional factors such as average population size, area width, population income, and socioeconomic situations of the population that were comparable to the circumstances in the hamlets impacted by Merapi, three samples of control hamlets were chosen.

As the LS Merapi study focuses on communities and households, the respondents come from both the household and village government levels, which are represented by the Head of Household (KRT), Spouse of Heads of Household (PKRT), and other Household Members (ART) in the household who are aware of the information requested in the instrument. [JF]