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Significant lessons can be drawn from grassroots experiences of coping with extreme weather for reducing the vulnerability of the urban poor to climate change. This paper examines the household and community coping strategies used by low-income households living in Korail, the largest informal settlement in Dhaka. This includes how they use physical, economic and social means to reduce risk, reduce losses and facilitate recovery from flooding and high temperatures, and shows how grassroots adaptation differs according to the level of risk from flooding. The paper also discusses how local planning and governance mechanisms aimed at adaptation can support these coping strategies, including mainstreaming them into adaptation plans that can be scaled up to the citywide level.

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Temporary housing programmes suffer from excessively high cost, late delivery, poor location, improper unit designs and other inherent issues. These issues can be attributed in part to a prevalence of ad hoc tactical planning, rather than pre-disaster strategic planning, for reconstruction undertaken by governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the chaotic post-disaster environment. An analysis of the process and outcomes from six case studies of temporary housing programmes after disasters in Turkey and Colombia in 1999, Japan in 1995, Greece in 1986, Mexico in 1985, and Italy in 1976 yields information about the extent to which strategic planning is employed in temporary housing programmes, as well as common issues in temporary housing. Based on an understanding of these common issues, this paper proposes a framework for strategic planning for temporary housing that identifies organisational designs and available resources for temporary housing before the disaster, but allows modifications to fit the specific post-disaster situation.

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