Deconstructing disaster risk creation discourses
Abstract and Figures
Processes of disaster risk creation are outpacing the achievements of disaster risk reduction initiatives. Preventing risk creation is consequently an objective recognised by major disaster frameworks. However, there exists a gap in our understanding of the processes contributing to risk creation, with the existing body of knowledge lacking conceptual clarification to guide empirical applications. This review distils how disaster scholarship either implicitly or explicitly theorises the concept of disaster risk creation by employing a semi-systematic scoping strategy and thematic analysis of global literature. Disaster risk creation is inferred to be the process, or set of processes, through which risk is constructed (by human actors) in relation to (socio-)natural hazards. Using scholarly enquiries into risk creation this review discusses why risk-creating decisions emerge and prevail, how risk reduction narratives obscure risk creation outcomes, how risk reduction initiatives can be counterproductive in their intents, and the extents of tangibility in risk-creating factors. To avoid disaster risk creation and question the continued establishment of risk-creating path dependencies, we identify a need for future research to look both at ongoing and changeable, as well as more distal, trajectory-setting processes. The outcomes of this review have the potential to enrich and advance the application of disaster risk creation within the field of disaster studies, inspiring the further interrogation and eventual deconstruction of disaster risk creation processes.
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... While vulnerability has been defined depending on the aims of the research [16], these tools often focus on preparedness, mitigation, and response strategies to minimize hazard risks. However, recent critiques highlight a significant gap in current practices of assessments: many risk reduction efforts are disconnected from a thorough exploration of the processes that contribute to Disaster Risk Creation (DRC, or risk creation henceforth) [17]. Muir and Opdyke [17] argue that this disconnect can lead to an incomplete understanding of risk, particularly through the lenses of vulnerability and exposure. ...
... However, recent critiques highlight a significant gap in current practices of assessments: many risk reduction efforts are disconnected from a thorough exploration of the processes that contribute to Disaster Risk Creation (DRC, or risk creation henceforth) [17]. Muir and Opdyke [17] argue that this disconnect can lead to an incomplete understanding of risk, particularly through the lenses of vulnerability and exposure. ...
... By engaging in risk reduction practices that are inclusive of the specific needs and characteristics of all populations, a move beyond the limitations of existing vulnerability assessments can be achieved. As Muir and Opdyke [17] point out, these assessments often perpetuate contentious expert opinions without truly addressing the root causes of risk. Therefore, by understanding and addressing risk creation processes for tourists' vulnerabilities, whole communities can become more resilient and better prepared to handle natural hazards such as wildfires. ...
Frequent wildfires increasingly impact tourist populations, yet there is a shortage of evidence-based, human-centered tools for wildfire risk reduction tailored to these areas. Most current tools focus primarily on assessing and reducing physical vulnerabilities, overlooking human aspects. While some community wildfire management guidelines exist, actionable strategies for disaster managers to address tourist-specific vulnerabilities are absent. This study aligned with existing vulnerability assessment methodologies, utilizing qualitative interviews, site visits, and literature review to identify key characteristics of tourist vulnerabilities and develop effective mitigation strategies. As a result, we developed TOURSAFE—a freely accessible tool for disaster risk managers in tourist areas. Based on human behavior in fire scenarios, expected evacuation decisions, and key actors’ expertise, TOURSAFE assists in identifying tourism-related wildfire vulnerabilities and offers relevant, adaptable mitigation strategies. This tool is easy to use, accessible, and provides actionable advice for short-, medium-, and long-term planning.
... Geoinformatics, AI and OS play a vital role in crisis management by providing tools and techniques for collecting, analyzing, and visualizing spatial data to understand, respond to, and mitigate crises (Rawat et al., 2024;Muir and Opdyke, 2024). -'Modern, affordable and liveable habitats'. ...
... Similarly, in October 2020, he described the heavy flooding that year as a "natural disaster," caused by "too much extra water," labeling it "a natural disaster" (quoted in Ref. [3]). While the UNDP (2020) has acknowledged Cambodia's vulnerability to climate change, government leaders in Cambodia have deflected responsibility for policies and practices that increased flood damage by blaming climate change and natural factors [4,5]. ...
This chapter examines the normative ethical paradigms in public administrative policies, focusing on mitigating fiscal aberrations, vulnerability constructs, and strategic countermeasures within service organisations. It explores the determinants of vulnerability, including opportunity, pressure, and rationalisation, while highlighting the significance of ethical governance in fostering accountability and public trust. The chapter elucidates the development of stratagems for effective fraud prevention and response strategies, emphasising the interplay between ethical considerations and operational practices. Furthermore, it underscores the necessity of collaboration among diverse stakeholders and the adoption of sustainability practices as integral to enhancing service delivery. Through a comprehensive analysis, this chapter offers insights into navigating the complexities of public administration, ultimately advocating for a holistic approach that integrates ethical frameworks with proactive vulnerability management.
There is strong evidence of the short-term impact of humanitarian interventions after disasters, however, relatively less is known about what, if any, impact this support has on long-term recovery outcomes in communities. This research examined long-term housing outcomes following assistance provided after the 2010 Merapi eruption in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. We surveyed 316 households who received and did not receive housing assistance following damaging lahar flows in the community of Jogoyudan to assess housing quality through a multi-dimensional measure. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression was used to evaluate the relationship of humanitarian assistance on housing quality outcomes, controlling for respondent and household demographics as well as the impacts of the disaster. Findings indicate that post-disaster housing assistance was positively correlated with higher long-term housing quality. Land tenure was found to be the strongest predictor of housing quality, explaining nearly a fifth of variance in housing quality. Livelihoods and construction abilities were also found to be significant predictors of long-term housing quality. Our results demonstrate the value of post-disaster housing programs in raising the living standard of recovering communities and the institutional, economic, and knowledge systems that support housing markets.
In the 2020s, understanding disaster risk requires a strong and clear recognition of values and goals that influence the use of political and economic power and social authority to guide growth and development. This configuration of values, goals, power and authority may also lead to concrete drivers of risk at any one time. Building on previous disaster risk frameworks and experiences from practice, since 2010, the ‘Forensic Investigations of Disasters (FORIN)’ approach has been developed to support transdisciplinary research on the transformational pathways societies may follow to recognise and address root causes and drivers of disaster risk. This article explores and assesses the achievements and failures of the FORIN approach. It also focuses on shedding light upon key requirements for new approaches and understandings of disaster risk research. The new requirements stem not only from the uncompleted ambitions of FORIN and the forensic approach but also from dramatic and ongoing transformational changes characterised by climate change, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the threat of global international confrontation, among other potential crises, both those that can be identified and those not yet identified or unknown.
Contribution: Disasters associated with extreme natural events cannot be treated in isolation. A comprehensive “all risks” or “all disasters” approach is essential for a global transformation, which could lead to a better world order. To achieve this, an Intergovernmental Panel for Disaster Risk is suggested to assess risk science periodically and work towards sustainability, human rights, and accountability, within a development and human security frame and on a systemic basis and integrated perspective.
Keywords: root causes; risk drivers; forensic investigations of disasters; FORIN; social construction of risk; disaster risk creation and construction; transformational change; existential threats; new world order.
This paper examines the impact of rapid urbanisation on the production of unequal disaster risk in Khokana, peri-urban town in the Kathmandu Valley (KV), Nepal. It brings together scholarships in disaster risk creation and urban political ecology (UPE), asking: (1) what are the roots of Khokana’s specific urbanization trajectory; (2) how is this trajectory altering geographies of hazard risks in Khokana; and (3) how is this risk unevenly distributed between social groups. The data reveal overlapping forms of risk and precarity affecting residents’ (long-standing and migrants) everyday lives, in ways that disproportionately impact already-disadvantaged and marginalized groups. These unequal risk geographies are related to the specific forms and processes of urban growth occurring in Khokana, fuelled by three powerful, interconnected pressures: neoliberal capitalist expansion, internal migration, and a strong developmental state. We characterise the
resulting form of urbanisation as ‘haphazard’: a patchwork of planned and unplanned developments, with inadequate attention to hazard risk, livelihood stability and essential services. The paper advances understanding of the place- and historically-specific ways that hazard risk intersects with social, political and economic forces to produce disaster risk in rapidly-urbanising
centres. We extend calls for more situated UPE analysis and call for greater, more granular attention to forms of haphazard urbanisation and their uneven risk-producing qualities. We
conclude an urgent need to reimagine urban development as a political and economic project, and for future urban planning to pay deliberate and deliberative attention to risk factors, both in KV and in other rapidly urbanising areas of the global South.
This study analyzed the international key literature on integrated disaster risk management (IDRM), considering it a dynamic sociocultural process subjected to the historical process of social formation, offering a closer look at the concept while exploring conceptual elements and ideas to advance IDRM in both national and international contexts. Methodologically, the study adopted a literature review strategy, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) approach, combined with qualitative content analysis. This article examines the history of IDRM, discusses current challenges for implementation, looks at some experiences, and proposes avenues for further research. Some findings point out the lack of an overarching IDRM approach, which is characterized by a rather disperse set of ideas and experiences concerning what IDRM is and how it should be operationalized, thereby revealing the need for a more comprehensive theory and methodologies to further advance it. Other findings highlight that IDRM encompasses different kinds and levels of “integrations” that go from internal (that is, disaster risk reduction and management domains) to external (that is, all societal processes such as sustainable development), including temporal and spatial integrations. Hence, we are talking about a multidimensional integration of disaster risk management. In this regard, the article proposes four dimensions for integration: sectoral, spatial/hierarchical, temporal, and externally with other cross-cutting societal challenges, especially climate change and sustainable development. These dimensions cover 29 ideas for indicators or “proto-indicators” to guide the discussion, exploration, and analysis of IDRM in specific contexts.
In this introductory paper we discuss the emergence of the ‘event’ as a critical point of interrogation of contemporary understandings of disaster. While the practicalities of DRR are underpinned by an applied vision of disaster studies largely built around hazards scholarship, developments within a number of theoretical perspectives increasingly doubt the ability of this objectivist and ‘experiential’ approach to reduce risk in the longer term. Here, we categorise these various challenges as revealed through the SI's cases and theoretical interventions, and in selected wider scholarship, and assess what they mean for disaster interpretation, prediction and politicisation. We frame the eight articles making up the SI within an overarching view of the event based around social interpretations of space, place, time, and nature. (Re)assessing calamitous events, we argue, is prescient in a contemporary global predicament focussed on present and future ‘climatic threats’.
Purpose
Driven by the New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, decision makers have been striving to reorientate policy debates towards the aspiration of achieving urban resilience and monitoring the effectiveness of adaptive measures through the implementation of standardised indicators. Consequently, there has been a rise of indicator systems measuring resilience. This paper aims to argue that the ambition of making cities resilient does not always make them less vulnerable, more habitable, equitable and just.
Design/methodology/approach
Using an inductive policy analysis of ISO standard 37123:2019 “Sustainable cities and communities — Indicators for resilient cities”, the authors examine the extent to which the root causes of risks are being addressed by the urban resilience agenda.
Findings
The authors show that the current standardisation of resilience fails to adequately address the political dimension of disaster risk reduction, reducing resilience to a management tool and missing the opportunity to address the socio-political sources of risks.
Originality/value
Such critical analysis of the Standard is important as it moves away from a hazard-centric approach and, instead, permits to shed light on the socio-political processes of risk creation and to adopt a more nuanced and sensitive understanding of urban characteristics and governance mechanisms.
Space is a feature of all disasters - and it is through decisions about how space is developed, used, and reproduced that disasters are manifested. Critical urban theory sees urban space - cities - as an arena of contestation expressed through the relationship between people, power, and the built environment. Cities allow for an unpacking of this process of contestation through the interpretation of various temporal, spatial, social, physical elements that together create complex issues and 'wicked problems.' In these urban spaces in all their complexity, disasters reveal the worst injustices and inequalities present in a society. Demonstrated through three well-known cases (Hurricane Katrina, 2010 Haiti Earthquake, and 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake), this paper explores opportunities critical urban theory presents for a deeper understanding of disaster risk creation and encourages disaster scholars to engage with it.
Purpose
Vulnerability is a label and a concept that is widely used in disaster studies. To date the meaning has been quite limited and implied “weakness”, with criticisms arising periodically but not halting vulnerability's reproduction. In this paper, the authors offer a new theory of vulnerability for the field, suggesting that complicating the concept can create space for liberatory discourse and organising.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors draw from diverse understandings of vulnerability to generate new conceptual ground for disaster scholars. The authors explore the relationships between power and agency and autonomy and social hierarchy with regards to how vulnerability is considered within neoliberal democracies. The authors also outline ideological responses and the political actions that follow.
Findings
This exploration is underpinned by dissatisfaction with the way that vulnerability has thus far been theorised in disaster studies. Using the analytical framings provided, the authors hope that others will build on the idea that so-called “vulnerable” people, working in solidarity and using intersecting frameworks of anti-racism, anti-colonialism and anti-capitalism, can undermine the risk-creating norms of the neoliberal state.
Originality/value
The authors argue that the dominant framing of vulnerability in disaster studies – and usage of the vulnerability paradigm – provides political traction for neoliberal social projects, based on notions of humanitarianism. The authors make this claim as a challenge to the authors and the authors' peers to maintain reflexive scholarship and search for liberatory potential, not only in vulnerability but in other concepts that have become normative.
