Why we can no longer ignore consecutive disasters
Abstract
In recent decades, a striking number of countries has suffered from consecutive disasters: events whose impacts overlap both spatially and temporally, while recovery is still under way. The risk of consecutive disasters will increase due to growing exposure, the interconnectedness of human society and the increased frequency and intensity of non-tectonic hazard.
The number of studies presenting theoretical frameworks to assess multi-risk is growing. While a large body of literature addresses multi-risk based on the spatial overlap between the exposure of different hazard types faced by one particular area, the temporal aspect of sequential hazards has been studied to a much lesser extent. Yet, neglecting the residual risk from the impact of consecutive hazards can lead to a strong bias in the total risk. We provide an extensive overview of the different types of consecutive disasters, their causes and impacts. The impacts can be distinctly different from disasters occurring in isolation (both spatially and temporally) from other disasters, noting that full isolation never occurs. Furthermore, we use existing empirical disaster databases to show the global probabilistic occurrence for selected hazard types. Current state-of-the art risk assessment models and their outputs do not allow for a thorough representation and analysis of consecutive disasters. This is mainly due to the many challenges that are introduced by addressing and combining hazards of different nature, and accounting for their interactions and dynamics. However, identifying the current modelling gaps is only one part of the problem. Even with perfect consecutive disaster modelling capabilities, the current institutional arrangements continue to lack the ability to address consecutive disasters during all phases of the Disaster Risk Management cycle. We therefore outline the following roadmap highlighting key future research and policy directions, and possible ways to strengthen coherent policies for disaster risk reduction.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.U13C..03D
- Keywords:
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- 0810 Post-secondary education;
- EDUCATION;
- 0815 Informal education;
- EDUCATION