I am interested with the social aspects of disaster studies. These include vulnerability, risk in general meaning, risk perception, disaster preparedness and social resilience at community level. 

If you have similar interest(s) with any of mine or my current, future or past research (see below), please fell free to contact me at saut.sagala@gmail.com

Future Research

I am interested to expand my future research on the following topics: climate change adaptation, disaster education, city and regional disaster resilience, planning for post disaster reconstruction, social aspect of bio-conservation, building safety environment for children, including children risk perception, application of GIS for risk communication, social network analysis.

(2009 - now) Community Adaptation to Climate Change in Muara Baru, North Jakarta, Indonesia (with Kiki Damayanti). 

(2009 - now) Social Resilience and Risk Perception of Communities in Mt. Sakurajima, Kagoshima, Japan

Survey of Social Resilience (Disaster Preparedness) of Communities in three areas affected by Mt. Sakurajima, Japan. Those three areas includes Kagoshima City, Sakurajima City and Tarumizu City. We distributed about 2,800 questionnaires to households and asked them their perception of volcanic risks and some related socio-psychological factors. So far (June 2009), we have received more than 500 filled questionnaires from the respondents, making the response rate about 18%.

(2006 - now) Social Resilience, Risk Perception and Evacuation Decisions of Communities in Mt. Merapi, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

The current PhD research project (2006 - 2009) I am carrying out is located in Merapi volcano. Many inhabitants living around this volcano, especially at the southern part. The volcano is noticed as very active volcano in term of frequency of eruption. Less than two decades two major eruptions (1994 and 2006) and some small eruptions occurred. Thus, the local inhabitants frequently need to evacuate when the volcanic activity increase.

(2007 - 2009) Participatory Risk Communication for Volcanic Risks

This research is my project collaboration with Institute for Forest and Environment (INFRONT) and Center for Disaster Studies (Pusat Studi Bencana) University of Gadjah Mada.

(2005 - 2006) Flood Vulnerability Assessment in Naga City, Philippines

I carried a survey to two Barangays that suffered from floods from Naga River. This was part of a SLARIM research project by ITC - The Netherlands.