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Article

Agency Coordination and Cross-Sector Collaboration in Fragile States  

Abdul-Akeem Sadiq and Jenna Tyler

Despite myriad descriptions and indicators used to define a fragile state, the international community has come to an agreement that a fragile state lacks the ability to maintain physical control of its territorial boundaries, provide basic public services, facilitate economic growth, and interact as a full member of the international community. Fragile states have historically experienced a disproportionate amount of natural disaster-related losses. For example, from 2005 to 2009, more than 50% of those impacted by a natural disaster lived in a fragile state, resulting in over $200 billion in losses. When natural disasters occur in such areas, they exacerbate already weak governance structures and further undermine their governments’ capability to respond to the crisis while simultaneously addressing challenges related to poverty and conflict. To remedy these and other complex issues inherent in fragile states, scholars are beginning to recognize the importance of investigating how fragile states can mitigate natural disaster losses through effective agency coordination and cross-sector collaboration. Agency coordination, in the context of natural disaster response, refers to the integration of facilities, equipment, personnel, and communication by public agencies for supporting incident response activities. Cross-sector collaboration refers to the sharing of information and resources by organizations in two or more sectors to achieve an outcome that cannot be produced by organizations in one sector alone. Because forecasts suggest that natural disaster-related losses will only increase in fragile states owing to population growth, urbanization, and climate change, there is a pressing need to understand the ways public organizations not only coordinate before, during, and after a natural disaster, but also how they collaborate across organizational sectors.

Article

Agenda Setting and Natural Hazards  

Rob A. DeLeo

Agenda setting describes the process through which issues are selected for consideration by a decision-making body. Among the myriad of issues policymakers can consider, few are more vexing than natural hazards. By aggregating (or threatening to aggregate) death, destruction, and economic loss, natural hazards represent a serious and persistent threat to public safety. While citizens rightfully expect policymakers to protect them, many of the policy challenges associated natural hazards fail to reach the crowded government agenda. This article reviews the literature on agenda setting and natural hazards, including the strain between preparing for emerging hazards, on the one hand, and responding to existing disasters, on the other hand. It considers the extent to which natural hazards pose distinctive difficulties during the agenda-setting process, focusing specifically on the dynamics of issue identification, problem definition, venue shopping, and interest group mobilization in natural hazard domains. It closes by suggesting a number of future avenues of agenda-setting research.

Article

Assessment Principles for Glacier and Permafrost Hazards in Mountain Regions  

Simon Allen, Holger Frey, Wilfried Haeberli, Christian Huggel, Marta Chiarle, and Marten Geertsema

Glacier and permafrost hazards in cold mountain regions encompass various flood and mass movement processes that are strongly affected by rapid and cumulative climate-induced changes in the alpine cryosphere. These processes are characterized by a range of spatial and temporal dimensions, from small volume icefalls and rockfalls that present a frequent but localized danger to less frequent but large magnitude process chains that can threaten people and infrastructure located far downstream. Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) have proven particularly devastating, accounting for the most far-reaching disasters in high mountain regions globally. Comprehensive assessments of glacier and permafrost hazards define two core components (or outcomes): 1. Susceptibility and stability assessment: Identifies likelihood and origin of an event based on analyses of wide-ranging triggering and conditioning factors driven by interlinking atmospheric, cryospheric, geological, geomorphological, and hydrological processes. 2. Hazard mapping: Identifies the potential impact on downslope and downstream areas through a combination of process modeling and field mapping that provides the scientific basis for decision making and planning. Glacier and permafrost hazards gained prominence around the mid-20th century, especially following a series of major disasters in the Peruvian Andes, Alaska, and the Swiss Alps. At that time, related hazard assessments were reactionary and event-focused, aiming to understand the causes of the disasters and to reduce ongoing threats to communities. These disasters and others that followed, such as Kolka Karmadon in 2002, established the fundamental need to consider complex geosystems and cascading processes with their cumulative downstream impacts as one of the distinguishing principles of integrative glacier and permafrost hazard assessment. The widespread availability of satellite imagery enables a preemptive approach to hazard assessment, beginning with regional scale first-order susceptibility and hazard assessment and modeling that provide a first indication of possible unstable slopes or dangerous lakes and related cascading processes. Detailed field investigations and scenario-based hazard mapping can then be targeted to high-priority areas. In view of the rapidly changing mountain environment, leading beyond historical precedence, there is a clear need for future-oriented scenarios to be integrated into the hazard assessment that consider, for example, the threat from new lakes that are projected to emerge in a deglaciating landscape. In particular, low-probability events with extreme magnitudes are a challenge for authorities to plan for, but such events can be appropriately considered as a worst-case scenario in a comprehensive, forward-looking, multiscenario hazard assessment.

Article

Bureaucratic Policymaking on Natural Hazards  

Kristin Taylor

Bureaucratic politics, discretion, and decision-making for natural hazards governance present an important challenge of the use of autonomous bureaucratic discretion in the absence of political accountability. Understanding how these factors influence discretion and policymaking is of critical importance for natural hazards because the extent to which bureaucrats are able to make decisions means that communities will be safer in the face of disaster. But the extent to which they are held accountable for their decisions has significant implications for public risk and safety. Bureaucrats are unelected and cannot be voted out of office. There are two significant areas that remain regarding the use of bureaucratic discretion in natural hazards policy. One key area is to consider the increasing emphasis on networked disaster governance on bureaucratic discretion and decision-making. The conventional wisdom is that networks facilitate disaster management much better than command and control approaches. However, the extent to which the use of bureaucratic discretion is important in the implementation of natural hazard policy, particularly for mitigation and preparedness, remains an open area of research. The other key area is the influence of bureaucratic discretion and decision-making when communities learn after a disaster. The political nature of disasters and the professional expertise of public service professionals imply that in order to make communities safer, bureaucrats will have to use discretion to push forward more aggressive mitigation and preparedness policies. Bureaucratic discretion would need to be used for both political and policy purposes in order to engage in policy learning after disasters that produces a substantive change.

Article

Changing Disaster Vulnerability and Capability in Aging Populations  

Jennifer Whytlaw and Nicole S. Hutton

The aging population, also referred to as elderly or seniors, represents a demographic of growing significance for disaster management. The population pyramid, an important indicator of population growth, stability, and decline, has shifted from the typical pyramid shape into more of a dome shape when viewing trends globally. While these demographic shifts in age structure are unique to individual countries, adjustments in disaster management are needed to reduce the risk of aging populations increasingly affected by hazards. Risk is especially evident when considering where aging populations live, as proximity to environmental hazards such as flooding, tropical storm surge, fires, and extreme weather resulting in heat and cold increase their risk. Aging populations may live alone or together in retirement communities and senior living facilities where the respective isolation or high density of older adults present specific risks. There is a concern in areas with high economic productivity, also considered post-industrial areas, where the population consists more of those who are aging and less of those who are younger to support the labor needs of the market and more specifically to support and engage aging populations. This disparity becomes even more prominent in specific sectors such as healthcare, including senior living assistance. In developing economies, the young are increasingly leaving traditionally intergenerational households to seek greater economic opportunities in cities, leaving many seniors on their own. Thus, risk reduction strategies must be conscious of the needs and contributions of seniors as well as the capacity of the workforce to implement them. The integration of aging populations within disaster management through accommodation and consultation varies across the globe. Provision of services for and personal agency among senior populations can mitigate vulnerabilities associated with age, as well as compounding factors such as medical fragility, societal interaction, and income. Experience, mobility, and socioeconomic capabilities affect decision making and outcomes of aging populations in hazardous settings. Therefore, the means of involvement in disaster planning should be adapted to accommodate the sociocultural, economic, and environmental realities of aging populations.

Article

Climate Adaptation Governance in Pakistan  

Syed-Muhammad Ali, Akhtar Naeem Khan, and Hamna Shakeel

Climate change is one of the greatest threats to the security of water, food, and energy in Pakistan. Pakistan has seen increased visibility of direct and indirect impacts of climate change since the early 1990s. Pakistan’s government achieved a milestone in 2012 when the first National Climate Change Policy (NCCP) was proposed. In response to dynamic climate trends, it provided a broad set of adaptation measures for vulnerable sectors such as power, food, water, and health. In 2014, a more precise follow-up framework was developed which proposed strategies to achieve the objectives of the NCCP. The government is also cooperating with national and international organizations and societies to make vulnerable sectors and local communities resilient against water shortages, flash floods, cyclones, and temperature extremes. Analysis of the existing state of adaptation actions and systems exposes several deficiencies. There is a huge knowledge gap between researchers and policymakers which needs to be bridged. Stakeholders, local communities, and experts from relevant fields need to be involved in the process of policy making for the development of a comprehensive adaptation plan. Educational and research institutes in Pakistan are deficient in expertise and modern tools and technologies for predicting future climatic trends and the risks they pose to various sectors of the country. Lack of awareness in the general public, related to climate change and associated risks, is also an obstacle in developing climate-resilient communities. The government of Pakistan is giving due importance to the development of policies and capacity building of relevant implementing departments and research institutes. However, there is still a need for a strong enforcement body at the national, provincial, and municipal levels to successfully implement government strategies.

Article

Climate Change Adaptation in New Zealand  

Paul Schneider and Bruce Glavovic

Coastal hazard risk is compounded by climate change. The promise and prospects of adaptation to escalating coastal hazard risk is fraught, even in a country like New Zealand that has laudable provisions for local authorities to be proactive in adapting to climate change. Continuing property development in some low-lying coastal areas is resulting in contestation and maladaptation. The resistance of some local authorities to do the inevitable and make long-term planning decisions in the face of amplifying risk can be linked to adaptation barriers. What can be done to overcome barriers and facilitate adaptation? Is transformation of the current mismatch between short-term planning and development aspirations, long-term societal goals, dynamic coastal processes and well-intended legislation and policy goals even possible? What can we learn from adaptation failures? In the face of compelling evidence and an enabling institutional framework, why is it that some coastal communities fail to prepare for the future? We shed light on such questions based on a long-term study of experience in New Zealand’s Coromandel Peninsula. We focus on the overarching question: Why is adaptation so challenging; and why are some coastal communities locked- into maladaptive pathways? We focus on the influence of a short-term decision-making focus of the problem of a low level of understanding and, following from this, the prioritization of protective works to combat erosion. Further, we draw attention to a major storm impact and the failure to turn this window of opportunity to a shift away from business as usual. Through the exploration of key stakeholder insights, the findings from the literature are reinforced and put into local context thus making the otherwise abstract barriers locally relevant. Matching and aligning adaptation theory with local reality can assist in advancing inquiry and policy practice to govern complex adaptation challenges.

Article

Climate Change and Amplified Representations of Natural Hazards in Institutional Cultures  

Scott Bremer, Paul Schneider, and Bruce Glavovic

Rapid climatic, natural and societal changes are altering the ways natural hazard risks are represented in societies, and in turn disrupting the ways people respond to these hazards. This poses an important challenge to how societies (re-)build institutions for governing or controlling risks. Institutions are systems of rules, norms and decision-making processes that structure our social interaction and practices. They organize how people define, plan for, and manage natural hazard risks; indeed, they create notions of risk. Going deeper, social sciences have defined institutions by the underlying “culture” on which they are built; the symbols, principles, core beliefs, and cognitive scripts that give institutions meaning. The culture structures how institutions represent the intertwined natural and social world that gives rise to natural hazard risks. Cultures work as a script for classing risks; giving people cues on how to understand and interpret the dangerous situations they find themselves in. Modern institutions are increasingly shaped by techno-scientific cultures, defining hazards and risks by their technically framed probability of physical harm, often expressed in terms of loss and damage. This risk quantification, and aspirations for precision, can give a false sense of control. But climatic change is already undermining, and threatening to undo, many of the long-held representations of natural and social order (and risk to this order) that steer institutions. Current case study research, in different places around the world, shows how climatic change is altering the way institutions interpret the natural hazards they manage in Bangladesh, New Zealand, and Norway for example. Dramatic climate change is confounding institutions’ cultures of risk quantification, and protection, shaking their claims to control natural hazards and undermining public trust in these institutions. One response is that institutions change the ways they define and class hazards, so that ordinary hazards are amplified as extraordinary. Faced with risks that are going beyond their experience and control, some institutions are compelled to unreflexively amplify well-intentioned protection-based responses, with at times unforeseen and disastrous consequences. Cases in Bangladesh and Norway both show how rushed river engineering works can evoke resistance from local communities. Emergency coastal protection can also have deleterious long-term social-ecological impacts, as experience shows in New Zealand. Scholars and practitioners alike recognize the need for critical reflection on how institutional cultures alter natural hazard risks according to climatic and other changes. This reflection is practical work that affects how people operate in institutions every day. It is structural work, as institutions change their rules as they learn more about risks. And it is work of social change, with social groups inside and outside institutions increasingly vocal in their criticism of changing climate risk framings. Case studies illustrate processes of institutional change, but equally, the resistance of institutions to change their cultures and notions of risk.

Article

Climate Change as a Transboundary Policymaking Natural Hazards Problem  

Elizabeth Albright

Throughout the world, major climate-related catastrophic events have devastated lives and livelihoods. These events are predicted to increase in frequency and intensity across the globe, as greenhouse gas emissions continue to accumulate in our atmosphere. The causes and consequences of these disasters are not constrained to geographic and political boundaries, or even temporal scales, increasing the complexity of their management. Differences in cultures, governance and policy processes often occur among jurisdictions in a transboundary setting, whether adjacent nations that are exposed to the same transboundary hazard or across municipalities located within the same political jurisdiction. Political institutions and processes may vary across jurisdictions in a region, presenting challenges to cooperation and coordination of risk management. With shifting climates, risks from climate-related natural hazards are in constant flux, increasing the difficulty of making predictions about and governing these risks. Further, different groups of individuals may be exposed to the same climate hazard, but that exposure may affect these groups in unique ways. Managing climate change as a transboundary natural hazard may mandate a shift from a focus on individual climate risks to developing capacity to encourage learning from and adaptation to a diversity of climatic risks that span boundaries. Potential barriers to adaptation to climate risks must not be considered individually but rather as a part of a more dynamic system in which multiple barriers may interact, impeding effective management. Greater coordination horizontally, for example through networks linking cities, and vertically, across multiple levels of governance (e.g., local, regional, national, global), may aid in the development of increased capacity to deal with these transboundary risks. Greater public engagement in management of risks from climate change hazards, both in risk mitigation and post-hazard recovery, could increase local-level capacity to adapt to these hazards.

Article

Collaboration and Cross-Sector Coordination for Humanitarian Assistance in a Disaster Recovery Setting  

David Sanderson

While known to be important and essential for improved effectiveness and efficiency, cross-sector coordination and collaboration among different actors engaged in postdisaster recovery is fraught with complications. Among the challenges are (a) who leads, and how; (b) the capacity and roles of the host government; (c) governance structures within organizations (which may differ a great deal); (d) assumptions of power; (e) the trade-off between valuing relationships and “getting the job done”; and (f) the varying constraints (and opportunities) of accountability. Recognizing the need to improve joint actions for a better response, the Humanitarian Reform Agenda (HRA), begun in 2005, led to the remolding of collective models of disaster response and the adoption of the global cluster system, which is essentially organized around the delivery of goods and services (sectors) by traditional aid actors such as the United Nations (UN), nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. While the cluster system has largely been acknowledged as an improvement in collaboration among actors, a perennial challenge of cross-sector coordination remains. One of the opportunities for improvement lies in better and more predictable leadership, one of the key areas identified by the HRA. Another opportunity lies in changing the focus from a supply-driven approach of prioritizing what aid providers deliver to a demand-driven understanding, such as that offered by area-based approaches, wherein sectors are more closely aligned. A common form of collaboration within aid is partnership between various actors (e.g., the United Nations or NGOs). Partnerships assume more than a constructing relationship: Effective partnerships emphasize the need for transparency and equity, along with being results-oriented and competent. Recognizing this, the Grand Bargain, resulting from the World Humanitarian Summit, noted that aid providers should engage with local and national responders in a spirit of partnership and aim to reinforce rather than replace local and national capacities. Partnerships, however, fall short all too often, especially when one partner has power over the other, which is often the case. The report Time to Let Go, by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), notes, for instance, that “the relationships between donor and implementer, aid provider and recipient, remain controlling and asymmetrical, and partnerships and interactions remain transactional and competitive, rather than reciprocal and collective.” The challenge remains to achieve the task at hand, while at the same time engaging in effective collaborative mechanisms that value the nature of the relationship. If this is not achieved, effective postdisaster recovery can be jeopardized.

Article

Collective Choices Affecting Natural Hazards Governance, Risk, and Vulnerability  

Thomas Thaler, David Shively, Jacob Petersen-Perlman, Lenka Slavikova, and Thomas Hartmann

The frequency and severity of extreme weather events are expected to increase due to climate change. These developments and challenges have focused the attention of policymakers on the question of how to manage natural hazards. The main political discourse revolves around the questions of how we can make our society more resilient for possible future events. A central challenge reflects collective choices, which affect natural hazards governance, risk, and individual and societal vulnerability. In particular, transboundary river basins present difficult and challenging decisions at local, regional, national, and international levels as they involve and engage large numbers of stakeholders. Each of these groups has different perspectives and interests in how to design and organize flood risk management, which often hinder transnational collaborations in terms of upstream–downstream or different riverbed cooperation. Numerous efforts to resolve these conflicts have historically been tried across the world, particularly in relation to institutional cooperation. Consequently, greater engagement of different countries in management of natural hazards risks could decrease international conflicts and increase capacity at regional and local levels to adapt to future hazard events. Better understanding of the issues, perspectives, choices, and potential for conflict, and clear sharing of responsibilities, is crucial for reducing impacts of future events at the transboundary level.

Article

Community-Based Disaster Risk Reduction  

Rajib Shaw

Community-based approaches existed even before the existence of the state and its formal governance structure. People and communities used to help and take care of each other’s disaster needs. However, due to the evolution of state governance, new terminology of community-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR) has been coined to help communities in an organized way. Different stakeholders are responsible for community-based actions; the two key players are the local governments and civil society, or nongovernment organizations. Private sector and academic and research institutions also play crucial roles in CBDRR. Many innovative CBDRR practices exist in the world, and it is important to analyze them and learn the common lessons. The key to community is its diversity, and this should be kept in mind for the CBDRR. There are different entry points and change agents based on the diverse community. It is important to identify the right change agent and entry point and to develop a sustainable mechanism to institutionalize CBDRR activities. Social networking needs to be incorporated for effective CBDRR.

Article

Corruption and the Governance of Disaster Risk  

David Alexander

This article considers how corruption affects the management of disaster mitigation, relief, and recovery. Corruption is a very serious and pervasive issue that affects all countries and many operations related to disasters, yet it has not been studied to the degree that it merits. This is because it is difficult to define, hard to measure and difficult to separate from other issues, such as excessive political influence and economic mismanagement. Not all corruption is illegal, and not all of that which is against the law is vigorously pursued by law enforcement. In essence, corruption subverts public resources for private gain, to the damage of the body politic and people at large. It is often associated with political violence and authoritarianism and is a highly exploitative phenomenon. Corruption knows no boundaries of social class or economic status. It tends to be greatest where there are strong juxtapositions of extreme wealth and poverty. Corruption is intimately bound up with the armaments trade. The relationship between arms supply and humanitarian assistance and support for democracy is complex and difficult to decipher. So is the relationship between disasters and organized crime. In both cases, disasters are seen as opportunities for corruption and potentially massive gains, achieved amid the fear, suffering, and disruption of the aftermath. In humanitarian emergencies, black markets can thrive, which, although they support people by providing basic incomes, do nothing to reduce disaster risk. In counties in which the informal sector is very large, there are few, and perhaps insufficient, controls on corruption in business and economic affairs. Corruption is a major factor in weakening efforts to bring the problem of disasters under control. The solution is to reduce its impact by ensuring that transactions connected with disasters are transparent, ethically justifiable, and in line with what the affected population wants and needs. In this respect, the phenomenon is bound up with fundamental human rights. Denial or restriction of such rights can reduce a person’s access to information and freedom to act in favor of disaster reduction. Corruption can exacerbate such situations. Yet disasters often reveal the effects of corruption, for example, in the collapse of buildings that were not built to established safety codes.

Article

Democratic Policymaking and Community Hazards Management  

Saundra Schneider

Disasters are significant events with enormous consequences for democratic political systems. As such, they provide important insights into how governmental institutions address hazardous situations. They also reveal the critical role that the media and politics play in this process. These themes are echoed in the general research on disasters, as well as in the accounts of hazardous events occurring in specific communities and locales. However, despite the wealth of scholarship conducted on this topic across a variety of disciplines, important questions remain about what role citizens play in this process, as well as the impact of governmental hazard management policies on broader democratic processes and societal conditions.

Article

Disaster Epistemology, Vulnerability, and Mitigation in Guatemala  

Roberto E. Barrios

From 1976 to 2023, disaster studies experienced a revolution in the way scholars think about natural hazards and disasters. Central to this transformation was the emergence of vulnerability theory, which defines disasters as processes that unfold over long periods because of human practices that enhance the materially destructive and socially disruptive capacities of natural hazards. For researchers involved in developing this analytical perspective, the 1976 earthquake in Guatemala stands out as a prime example of the role of social forces in engendering disaster. Beyond the 1976 earthquake, a review of Guatemala’s history of disasters illuminates the intimate relationship between development practices, socioeconomic inequity, and catastrophes from the pre-Columbian period to the early 21st century. Paralleling the rise of vulnerability theory in the 1970s was the growing interest of disaster scholars in the methodological potential of catastrophes to reveal social structures (e.g., kinship organization) and fault lines (e.g., class and racial structures) that are not readily apparent in times of “normalcy.” Moreover, this interest in the revelatory qualities of disasters was accompanied by a number of hypotheses concerning the relationship between disasters and social change. Once again, Guatemala has offered a number of case studies that illustrate how disasters allow researchers to see social structures, inequities, and contradictions and have shed light on why some disasters are conducive to progressive social change while others are not. Specifically, the case of Guatemala demands social scientists understand disaster vulnerability and the transformative potential of disasters within the broader global political–economic networks of colonial and postcolonial extraction and exploitation. As the 21st century progresses, Guatemala struggles with the local particularities of global disasters. Central America is the tropical region that stands to be most affected by anthropogenic climate change, yet the country’s national government has not implemented the hazard mitigation, urban planning, and inequity reduction programs necessary to counteract these effects. From 2015 to 2023, climate change–related droughts and floods displaced thousands of subsistence farmers, many of whom chose to migrate internationally in search of better livelihoods. Similarly, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted a country with a fragmented and critically underfunded health care system and deeply entrenched inequities between urban and rural and Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations. As a result, Guatemala’s excess mortality rate during the most acute years of the pandemic (2020 and 2021) more than doubled that of Costa Rica, the Central American nation that was best prepared to confront the global health crisis. Despite the notable role of the 1976 earthquake as a classic example of vulnerability theory and the role disasters have played in inciting socio-political upheavals and change, disaster social science research and disaster risk reduction remain poorly developed in Guatemala.

Article

Disaster Risk and Decision-Making  

Jeroen Warner and Art Dewulf

Disasters call for rapid decision-making, with precious little time to select a course of action among several possible alternative options. Disaster risk decision-making is situated in the context of the shifting understandings of decision-making under uncertainty, intensified by climate change. Three research traditions are identified in decision-making: (a) classic analytical decision-making theories, (b) naturalistic decision-making (NDM) and sense-making, and (c) multiple streams and complexity approaches. Crisis decision-making and risk decision-making are increasingly becoming intertwined.

Article

Disaster Risk, Moral Hazard, and Public Policy  

Thomas Husted and David Nickerson

Natural disasters pose a significant and rapidly growing burden to society, causing over a million deaths and worldwide economic losses in the trillions of dollars in the last twenty years. Concerned over the extent to which their populations are exposed to disaster risk, policymakers in disaster-prone countries strive to increase the penetration of disaster insurance from its relatively low current level and wish to arrest the increasing share of public liability for private losses arising from rising public expenditures on disaster recovery. Although evidence regarding disaster risk and insurance suggests that individuals respond to their economic incentives when deciding on the degree to which to expose their property and other to risk from a recurrent disaster, potential inefficiencies in private insurance markets can distort these individual incentives and result in underinsurance and excessive exposure. Current research into whether such apparent market inefficiencies are primarily attributed to the behavior of private market participants or to the adverse incentives arising from current programs of disaster aid, regulation and other public policies is of fundamental importance to attaining these policy objectives. This article critically assesses the current state of mainstream economic and political research into disasters, public policy, and household behavior toward disaster risk. Findings of the most important and influential empirical and theoretical studies over the last 30 years are described, as well as limits on the robustness and interpretation of these findings arising from the characteristics of economic data on disasters and potential bias in measuring the determinants of disaster insurance coverage. Also discussed are both theoretical and empirical evidence that moral hazard on the part of households, insurance firms, and elected officials results in misallocations of private coverage; and it is demonstrated that, exactly contrary to the objectives of public policy, current programs of disaster aid in the presence of moral hazard create incentives for households to minimize, rather than maximize, market coverage of their exposure to disaster risk. The conclusion presents and proves a proposition, original to this article, that any compensatory public aid program is necessarily a source of economic inefficiency and, conditional on net losses, decreases economic welfare.

Article

Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation in South Asia  

Mihir Bhatt, Ronak B. Patel, Kelsey Gleason, and Mehul Pandya

Both the impact and the frequency of natural disasters and extreme events in South Asia are steadily increasing due to growing exposure and vulnerability. These vulnerabilities are compounded by fast economic growth and an increase in natural disasters across the region. Disaster losses in South Asia are rising and are felt across many domains. From the formal to the informal economy, natural disasters have increasingly strong impacts in terms of lives lost, social impact, and impediments to growth. New challenges in disaster risk reduction are emerging due to an increase in the duration and frequency of natural disaster events attributable to climate change. Though both climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction efforts exist to some degree throughout South Asia, integrating climate change adaptation into disaster risk reduction is critical to successful and inclusive growth of economies in the region. Challenges remain, and national and subnational governments are making some progress in policies aimed at both climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. However, many of these efforts are planned, designed, and implemented separately, with limited understanding of how disaster and climate risk are linked. Moreover, progress is hindered by poor understanding of how integration of these concepts can result in better governance of risk in South Asia. Additionally, political will, capacity constraints, and institutional barriers must be overcome. Efforts by the international community are making progress in unifying these concepts, yet gaps and challenges still exist. The benefits of converging climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction in Asia are significant, from minimizing climate-related losses to more efficient use of limited resources and more effective and sustainable development.

Article

Disasters and Large-Scale Population Dislocations: International and National Responses  

Anthony Oliver-Smith

Large-scale displacement takes place in the context of disaster because the threat or occurrence of hazard onset makes the region of residence of a population uninhabitable, either temporarily or permanently. Contributing to that outcome, the wide array of disaster events is invariably complicated by human institutions and practices that can contribute to large-scale population displacements. Growing trends of socially driven exposure and vulnerability around the world as well as the global intensification and frequency of climate-related hazards have increased both the incidence and the likelihood of large-scale population dislocations in the near future. However, legally binding international and national accords and conventions have not yet been put in place to deal with the serious impacts, and material, health-related, and sociocultural losses and human rights violations that are experienced by the millions of people being swept up in the events and processes of disasters and mass population displacements. Effective policy development is challenged by the increasing complexity of disaster risk and occurrence as well as issues of causation, adequate information, lack of capacity, and legal responsibility. States, international organizations, state and international development and aid agencies must frame, define, and categorize appropriately disaster forced displacement and resettlement to influence effective institutional responses in emergency humanitarian assistance, transitional shelter and care, and durable solutions in managing migration and resettlement if return is not possible. The forms that disaster-associated forced displacements are projected to take and corresponding national responses are explored in the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 in Sri Lanka, a massive disaster in a nation riven by civil conflict; Hurricane Katrina of 2005 in the United States, where the scale and nature of displacement bore little relation to hazard intensity; and the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, Tsunami, and nuclear exposure incident exemplifying the emerging trend of complex, concatenating, multihazard disasters that bring about large-scale population displacements.

Article

Disasters and the Private Sector: Impact of Extreme Events, Preparedness, and Contribution to Disaster Risk Reduction  

Simon A. Andrew, Vaswati Chatterjee, and Gary Webb

Private-sector organizations play a significant role in disaster management. Small businesses and larger corporations employ a sizable population in our communities, provide essential goods and services, and are often an integral component of community development. Within the disaster management arena, private-sector organizations in coordination with government agencies provide valuable services in the aftermath of disasters. They make valuable contributions to relief and response through donations and volunteering. They also aid the recovery process through continued employment that provides economic stability to the surrounding community and provision of essential services like food, rebuilding and reconstruction services, and housing for displaced populations. Certain businesses may also significantly contribute to long-term disaster management functions like community disaster risk reduction. While small businesses often actively participate in community resilience planning and implementation, larger corporations also contribute toward sustainable development through corporate social responsibility policies. However, to be effective partners in disaster management, businesses need to be first prepared to maintain continuity of operations in the aftermath of disasters. Having a continuity of operations plan and taking financial preparedness measures have been found to be effective for survival of businesses. Businesses may face other challenges when participating in disaster management actions—specifically, lack of resources and knowledge, as well as collective action risks associated with public–private partnerships. Additionally, not all private-sector agencies may be motivated to contribute toward disaster risk reduction practices. In fact, disasters can often create short-term positive economic impacts due to flow of external aid and increased demand for certain services like construction and housing—thus motivating businesses to choose short-term economic profits over long-term investments in disaster risk reduction. In summary, while the role of the private sector in disaster management is crucial, their involvement is complex and faces numerous challenges. The connection between businesses and community resilience is also less studied. It is therefore of value to examine the role of businesses as significant stakeholders in community disaster management, identify factors that motivate or hinder their participation, and discuss ways in which businesses can improve their own preparedness so as to minimize disruption in the aftermath of disasters.