Lessons learned from businesses to ensure community level recovery in a postdisaster period: case from Adapazari, Turkey

Abstract

This study argues that businesses, as principal units of both the economy and the urban environment, show different performances in the postdisaster period that in turn affect the community-level recovery. To this end, the paper examines the long-term recovery process of businesses through empirical research in Adapazari, Turkey, which was greatly challenged by the 1999 earthquake. A total of 232 respondent firms there were selected through stratified random sampling. Data were gathered via questionnaire designed to identify the factors that determined their success during the recovery process. It is hypothesized that the recovery performance of businesses is affected by a number of factors that are categorized thus: internal factors, response capacity, and the extent of damage within the business recovery model. The findings of the study indicate that business recovery is associated positively with operating in the finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) sector, but negatively correlated with operating in the trade and service sectors, and with variables expressing the states of being financially in trouble and taking more damage. A policy frame is provided for the integration of business recovery into community recovery by focusing on the predictors of business vulnerability and loss. © 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.