Using Land Readjustment in Rebuilding the Earthquake-Damaged City of Bhuj, India

Abstract

Major earthquakes cause large scale devastation disrupting life, destroying homes, damaging properties and vital community infrastructure. Such events also offer opportunities for reorganizing neighborhoods and rebuilding disaster resilient communities. This article presents the case of reconstruction of Bhuj City in India following its devastation in the 2001 Gujarat earthquake, and showcases how consultative and planned intervention can rebuild better cities after a natural disaster. The land readjustment (LR) process was applied in reconstruction of a densely built, historically significant inner city area of Bhuj to transform it into a safer community resilient to disaster. LR, a microarea planning technique, is characterized as a strategy to carve out private lot sizes to create adequate public land for widening and straightening of streets, accommodating parks and amenities, and planning land lots and urban blocks with access to public infrastructure. Bhuj is one of the rare cities outside of Japan where the land readjustment technique was successfully implemented for postearthquake planning. This article provides insights on the challenges and opportunities that land readjustment implementation offers for postdisaster reconstruction.