Studying Displacement After a Disaster Using Large Scale Survey Methods: Sumatra After the 2004 Tsunami

Area of Science:

• Human-environment interaction
• Environmental sociology
• Disaster studies

Background:

• Measuring human vulnerability to environmental change and resultant mobility is challenging.
• Existing models struggle to interpret population movements across diverse disaster-affected regions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze post-tsunami vulnerability and mobility in Indonesia using integrated data.
• To compare migration patterns between tsunami-damaged and undamaged areas.
• To identify predictors of displacement and their relationship with vulnerability.

Main Methods:

• Longitudinal population-based surveys of Indonesian coastal residents before and after the 2004 tsunami.
• Integration of survey data with satellite imagery.
• Multivariate statistical analyses to map and analyze vulnerability and migration.

Main Results:

• Post-tsunami migration was less selective than in other contexts.
• Gender and age predicted movement from undamaged areas but not damaged ones.
• Low socioeconomic status and education did not predict moving but influenced displacement destination (camp vs. private home).

Conclusions:

• Combined survey, satellite, and statistical methods offer new insights into disaster impacts and population well-being.
• Traditional vulnerability predictors may not apply uniformly in post-disaster contexts.
• This approach is broadly applicable to human-environment research and hypothesis testing.