Introduction 1 Project Background Baseline Assessment.

BASELINE ASSESSMENT OF TSUNAMI AFFECTED VILLAGES TAMBON KAMPHUAN, SUK SAMRAN DISTRICT, RANONG PROVINCE, THAILAND 1. Introduction 1.1 Project Background The December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami severely impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in coastal villages throughout the region. The Post-Tsunami Sustainable Coastal Livelihoods Program was implemented to assist local government coordinate, plan and implement recovery efforts. It was implemented as a demonstration project in five communities in Ranong Province, south of the Myanmar border along the Andaman Coast. The five villages are Thale Nok Village Number1; Nua No. 2; Kam Phuan No. 3; Phu Khao Thong No. 4, also referred to as Ta Klang; and Haad Sai Kao No. 7, also referred to as Baan Haad Yao. 1 Details concerning project background and implementation can be found in the report on the participatory rapid appraisal PRA conducted by Soparth, et al. 2005. Additional information on the communities can be found in Pollnac and Kotowicz 2005. 1.2 Purpose of Baseline and methods used 1.2.1 Purpose The purpose of the baseline assessment is to provide a baseline for assessing changes through time in affected villages as impacted by recovery programs and other factors. This will allow those involved in recovery efforts to assess impacts of their recovery activities as well as plan activities based on the information from the baseline assessment. 2 1.2.2 Methods Methods involved a preliminary assessment Pollnac and Kotowicz 2005 to determine information of use in designing and conducting a baseline survey Pollnac and Crawford 2000. Questions in the baseline survey included: 1 background on the interviewee e.g., age, religion, gender, education, 2 the individuals household e.g., material possessions, sources of income, household size, 3 impacts of the tsunami on humans, household material wealth, and occupation, and 4 individuals’ perceptions of well- being, beliefs concerning the environment, attitudes towards the occupation of fishing, perceptions of changes over time and perceptions of ongoing and planned recovery activities see interview form in Appendix I. Sample households were selected using systematic sampling in each of five villages 1, 2, 3, 4, 7. Target sample size for each village was fifty households. Sampling was accomplished by determining number of households from official statistics and interviews, then dividing that number by 50 for each village. The resulting number X was used to select every X th household in the village for an interview. In addition, all households that relocated to other locations were identified and included in the sampling procedure to capture the portion of the population that moved as a result of the tsunami. Number of households and percent of total number of houses for each village are as follows: Village 1, 43 94, Village 2, 46 17, Village 3, 61 34, Village 4, 50 23, Village 7, 51 43. The reason for the relatively larger sample size in Village 3 and smaller in Village 2 was lack of information regarding the border between Villages 2 and 3 in the Sub-District and Tambon office records. Overall, 30 percent of the 840 reported households for the 5 villages are included in the sample. One male and one female adult were interviewed in each household resulting in a total sample size of 502. 1 The numbers for the villages are official designations for the Tambon, which are used in official documents as well as terms of reference by some individuals. 2 Much of the data presented in this baseline were presented in preliminary baseline reports prepared in the latter half of 2005. 2. Tsunami Impacts on Residents. 2.1