Vulnerability of housing and human settlements.

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8.1 Vulnerability of housing and human settlements.

The spatial distribution of existing urban settlements within the built up area is not the result of a careful planning process to guide urban expansion into safer areas. The migration of population from rural area is one of the reasons for population growth. Hence the physical growth of urban areas on one hand is influenced by the fact where the lower income groups can get settled. Many of the migrant population are within this group and they can not afford to get land in safer areas where they can build houses. The other factor is the selection of localities by individuals for expansion of their economic activities or set up new private enterprises. Concentration of such commercial establishments mainly depends on the facilities available to them. The urban poor need to have easy access to such areas and they tend to concentrate around such areas of economic activities. They always try to find locations where they can easily settle down. They can easily find localities such as reservation areas around canals, transportation routes, and low laying areas left for water retention or around water bodies which are highly vulnerable to flooding. At times the reason for water logging and poor drainage within urban built up areas is such unauthorized settlements. Such settlements also lack basic facilities, services and consist of substandard housing and infrastructure. Those poor communities who used to live in substandard housing are usually vulnerable to flooding and other climate hazards in particular those who are concentrated in high risk areas. They will lose economic assets, personal belongings and limited valuables they posses during extreme events. Such urban poor tend to have limited adoptive capacities and more dependent on climate sensitive resources such as local food supplies, water, etc as well are dependent on daily wages earned through livelihoods again at risk due to climate hazards. Where extreme weather events become more intense and more frequent the economic and social costs of those events will increase. Impacts to poor households living in substandard housing in high risk areas from due to such events are quite considerable. Traditionally population in South East Asian countries especially in Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia used unique structural and architectural designs and cultural practices as a way of adaptation to weather related natural events such as construction of elevated houses on stills. This was to prevent destructions mainly due to flooding as well as to have protection from wild animals. In addition this has created open areas and additional working space for the family during summer dry periods to get benefited from natural cooling provided by the environment. Also they used to collect water using traditional rainwater harvesting methods and stored water in large containers. The present day urban society tends to have least respect for such cultural and traditional practices. The assessment for human settlement and housing sector has been carried out in target cities keeping in mind the above mentioned facts. The below given table shows the distribution of buildings within the city limits based on the maps obtained from the National Housing Authority. 111 Table 8.1. Building occupancy type Source: Municipality Phuket Hatyai Chiang Rai Udon Thani Residential 61.46 76.75 64.83 68.65 Commercial 20.07 2.70 3.12 2.69 I ndustrial 2.79 0.72 0.92 6.01 Mixed use 11.28 10.85 12.20 17.37 Transportation utilities 0.02 0.12 0.28 0.29 Government Office Public Service 4.12 1.99 4.27 4.73 Others 0.26 6.88 14.39 0.27 of building in city building type Table 8.2. Building in flood prone area Source: ADPC TUDPM, DDPM provincial office, Municipality, Calculation by ADPC Phuket Hatyai Chiang Rai Udon Thani Residential 62.38 78.27 75.67 54.92 Commercial 18.75 2.37 3.22 2.15 Industrial 3.45 0.51 0.77 4.81 Mixed use 12.93 12.13 3.98 13.90 Transportation utilities 0.00 0.10 0.02 0.23 Government Office Public Service 2.32 1.74 2.01 3.78 Others 0.17 4.87 14.33 0.22 building within flood plone area building type Figure 8.1. Inundation map of Chiang Rai Source: DDPM Chiang Rai province, Municipality, Field survey 112 Figure 8.2. Inundation map of Hat Yai Source: ADPC TUDMP, Municipality, Field survey Figure 8.3. Inundation map of Phuket Source: Municipality, Field survey 113 Figure 8.4. Pictures of occupancy types in Chiang Rai Source: Field survey Figure 8.5. Pictures of occupancy types in Udon Thani Source: Field survey 114 Figure 8.6. Pictures of occupancy types in Hat Yai Source: Field survey Figure 8.7. Pictures of occupancy types in Phuket Source: Field survey 115 Figure 8.8. Pictures of occupancy types in Samut Sakhon Source: Field survey Figure 8.9. Vulnerable buildings in Udon Thani Source: Field survey Figure 8.10. Vulnerable buildings in Chiang Rai Source: Field survey 116 Figure 8.11. Vulnerable buildings in Hat Yai Source: Field survey Figure 8.12. Vulnerable buildings in Phuket Source: Field survey Floods are the main extreme weather event which is common to all 05 selected cities for the study. Monsoon flooding is very common in Hat Yai, Udon Thani and Chiang Rai districts and cities and urban built up area in all three districts suffered heavy damages in the recent past. More intense and frequent flood events during last 5 years have been observed in Hat Yai Udon Thani and Chiang Rai. Substandard and low-cost housing settlements suffered a lot from such flood events. In addition the urban population had suffered due to damages and looses to household items such as furniture, TV, Radio and also to vehicles. Overall all 5 cities face water logging problem in areas with poor drainage. Housing and settlements in low-laying areas often get affected and largely impact on substandard housing located along canals, reservation areas, low-laying areas are quite considerable. Other common type of hazard which has created substantial impact in terms of frequent damage and asset loss is fire events again common in Udon Thani, Chiang Rai and Hat Yai. Several districts in Chiang Rai province had severe impact due to ice rains, gale and gusty wind storm occurred during last few years and substantial impacts have been observed due to ice rain in year 2008. Due to such events some of the rural housing, farm land suffered heavily as owners had to replace totally or partially damaged roofing material. Housing located in mountain slopes in Phuket and Chiang Rai provinces also had to face total destructions due to land sliding. 117

8.2 Health and Sanitation