natural disasters: a framework for research and teaching

Natural Disasters: A Framework for Research and Teaching

DAVID ALEXANDER

Natural disasters are defined in this paper by relating the impact of extreme geophysical events to patterns of human vulnerability. Hazard perception is shown to be a factor that limits the mitigation of risk. The historical development of disaster studies is traced and five different schools of thought are identified. The current International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (ZDNDR) is evaluated critically zclifh regard to its potential for unifying the disparate strands of knowledge and its scope as a vehicle for education.

A pedagogical framework for disaster studies is presented. Time and space provide valuable unifying factors, while the subject matter can be differentiated according to the continua and dichotomies that it presents. In disaster studies as in other branches of higher education, an ecocentric approach is preferable to a technocentric one, as inany of the poorer nations of the zuorld, which are most afflicted by natural catastrophe, will have to rely for mitigation on maintaining their ecological sustainability, instead of depending on sophisticated technology. Valuable insights into the impact of environmental extremes on mankind are gained from the study of disasters as human ecology.

The United Nations has designated the years 1990-2000 as the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR). Education is a vital component of this global initiative to reduce the toll of casualties and destruction caused by natural catastrophe, and it is primarily at the post-school level that tomorrow's hazard managers and scientists will be instructed and trained. Obviously, it is essential that they be given a broad and rigorous grounding in the theories, methodologies and examples that constitute the "proto-discipline" of natural hazards and disaster studies.' In this paper I review the past development and current state of this field, examine some of its theoretical underpinnings and propose a

framework for teaching it at the level of adult education.

The key to a successful didactic approach to natural disasters is to consider them as whole phenomena, in which the demands of the problem (such as search and rescue, the provision of shelter and the management of mass casualties) replace narrow disciplinary specializations. Thus, in the emergent field of disaster studies it is imperative that the approach be fully inter- disciplinary. Moreover, there is considerable scope for considering disasters within the compass of ecology, as extreme forms of ecological - or more properly human ecological - relationships.*

DISASTERS VOLUME 15 NUMBER 3

220 David Alexander

ESSENTIAL DEFINITIONS

According to Burton and Kates (1964, p. 413) ’‘Natural hazards are those elements in the physical environment [which are] harmful to man and caused by forces extraneous to him”.3 Turner (1976, pp. 755-756) offered a more detailed defi- nition of disaster, as

” . . . an event, concentrated in time and space, which threatens a society or a relatively self-sufficient subdivision of a society with major unwanted consequences as a result of the collapse of precautions which had hitherto been culturally accepted as adequate”.

From this it is clear that disasters occur when physical impacts coincide with human vulnerability, and that the concept of risk principally involves the likelihood of loss sustained by elements in the human landscape which are threatened by future hazard impacts. These impending losses can be mitigated by adjustment in the form of modifications to extreme natural events, reductions in human vulnerability, or in the last resort by taking emergency action (Kates, 1971).

In cases where there is some degree of choice, risks are assumed because they entail benefits to the risk taker. Thus, the impact of disasters can be viewed as a simple conceptual equation (Burton, Kates and White, 1978):

net impact total benefits total costs of disasters = of inhabiting - of disaster -

costs of adaptation

to risk

risk zone impact

According to an alternative formulation4 the sum total of risk is a product of the magnitude and extensiveness of the natural hazard impact, the number and size of elements at risk, and their vulnerability in terms-of probable levels of damage and destruction:

total impact of elements risk hazard at risk X X - -

vulnerability of elements at risk

All the constituents of this equation may vary. While in certain fields the impact of natural hazards is fairly immutable, or subject to definable natural trends, in others it can be altered by human activity (as in the cases of induced seismicity, flooding related to the “greenhouse effect” and subsidence resulting from groundwater withdrawal). Planning laws, development initiatives and evacuation plans are examples of measures which can alter the number of elements at risk. Their vulnerability is a function of three factors (Alexander, 1991):

total risk risk vulnerability = amplification - mitigation f

measures measures

risk perception

factors

Risk amplification occurs as a result of the continued development of past and future disaster areas, but it can be reduced by mitigation efforts. Micklin (1973) lists four ways in which the latter can be applied:

engineering mechanisms, including technological innovations and application; symbolic mechanisms, including culture and its constituent norms and roles; regulatory mechanisms, defining public policy and social control; distributional mechanisms, which specify the movement of people, activities and resources.

The extent of risk amdification or mitigation will depend on the degree to which it is perceived. Mileti (1980) noted that perception can be divided into that


Natural Disasters: A Frameuiork for Research and Teaching 211

pertaining to the likelihood of damage and that relating to the role of mitigation. The level of perception will depend on the ability to estimate risk and perceive its causes, the level of past experience with hazards, the propensity to deny that a risk exists, the level of access to appropriate information and the size of the unit analysed. Preston et al . (1983) described the psychological adjustments which are necessary to reduce "cognitive dissonance", which they defined as the psychological discomfort that arises when two conflicting beliefs are held simultaneously, as when a person perceives his environment to be hazardous, but continues to live in it.

SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT

In the English-speaking world the field of natural disasters has grown in close association with the applied natural and social sciences, but has suffered from problems of fragmentation and over-specialization, as well as the insuIarity that disciplinary studies tend to foster. To some extent this has prevented it from acquiring a separate identity.

During the last 125 years there has been a gradual shift of emphasis in the natural and social sciences from the impact of environment upon mankind to humanity's impact on environment (Holt-Jensen, 1988). In one sense, disasters represent an extreme class of human-environmental or ecological phenomena.s They cannot truly be considered natural, in that human vulnerability seldom results from purely natural states (rather than locational decisions based on socio-economic criteria) and human in- tervention often results in aggravated risk of geophysical impact.6 Hence, because they represent an environmental imperative to society, natural disasters have been studied using the tenets of human ecology, which Mileti (1980) defined as " . . . seeking the determinants of human behaviour in natural environment, and the processes that

facilitate human adjustment to the physical world through social organization".

Although an all-embracing concept such as human ecology is capable of unlfying disparate subject matter, it has not been adopted universally. The increasing div- ision of knowledge into disciplines, which have in turn spawned sub-disciplines, has meant that natural hazards and disaster studies have had to struggle for identity against a wide range of groups and sub- groups, many of which have substantial overlap and common ground but often very different viewpoints, approaches or objectives. Regrettably, the field has responded to increasing disciplinary specialization by becoming fragmented. Hence, the following schools of thought and expertise can at present be identified.

(1) The geographical approach to natural hazards stems from Harland Barrows' work in the 1920s on human ecological adaptation to environment (Barrows, 1923) and Gilbert F. White's seminal 1940s monograph on flood perception (White, 1945, 1973). Social science methods are widely used and emphasis is given to the spatio-temporal distri- bution of risk, impacts and vulnerability (Palm, 1990).7

(2) The anthropological approach, as evinced by the work of Torry (1979a), Dudasik (1982) and Oliver-Smith (1990) has focused on the role of disasters in guiding the socio-economic evolution of populations, in dispersing them and in causing the destruction of civiliz- ations (although Torry [op. cit.] noted that the last of these is very debatable). A strong concern for the Third World has led anthropologists to search for the threshold points beyond which local communities can no longer provide the basic requirements for survival of their members. They have also studied the "marginalization syndrome" arising from the impoverishment of disad-


212 David Alexander

vantaged groups in underdeveloped societies.

(3) The sociological approach stems from the work of Russell R. Dynes, Enrico L. Quarantelli and others. Vulnerability and impacts are considered in terms of patterns of human behaviour and the effects of disasters upon community functions and organization (Quaran- telli, 1978; Drabek, 1986; Dynes, De Marchi and Pelanda, 1987). In addition, psychologists have studied disaster in relation to factors such as stress (Glass, 1970), bereavement (Church, 1974) and the "disaster syndrome", a psycho- logically determined defensive reaction pattern (Wallace, 1956).

(4) The development studies approach considers problems of providing aid and relief to Third World countries, and addresses questions of refugee management, health care and the avoidance of starvation. Logistical aspects are emphasized, as are nutritional studies (Cuny, 1983; D'Souza and Crisp, 1985; Seaman, Leivesley and Hogg, 1984). Davis (1978) stated that over 80 per cent of disaster impacts occur in developing countries,' and it is clear that the epiphenomenon of poverty increases human vulnerability to natural hazards: locational constraints tend to place the poor more firmly in the path of impacts, while credit, savings, capital and alternative options that normally cushion the impact are lacking (Tory, 1979a). In addition, Rivers (1982) found that in less-developed societies the burden of coping with disasters falls dispro- portionately on the unemancipated woman.

(5) A new field of disaster medicine and epidemiology has recently been founded. It focuses on the management of mass casualties, the treatment of severe physical trauma and the epidemiological surveillance of com-

municable diseases whose incidence rates may increase during the disruption of public health measures following a disaster (Beinin, 1985; Manni and Magalini, 1985).

(6) The technical approach prevails among natural and physical scientists (Smith, 1985). Emphasis is given to seismology, volcanology, geomorphology and other predominantly geophysical approaches to disasters (Bolt et al., 1977; Stein- brugge, 1982).

Clearly, the prevailing theories and models in hazard and disaster studies have not succeeded in preventing the emergence of quite separate schools of thought that deal with what are essentially the same phenomena. Dichotomies exist between the technocentric school, to whom the solution to the disaster problem lies in the application of measuring and monitoring techniques and sophisticated managerial strategies, and the development school, who point out that, as a result of poverty, such luxuries are denied to the majority of disaster victims. Concomitantly, most of the theory used by hazards specialists has been formulated for the developed world (especially the United States of America) and is of doubtful validity elsewhere.

One opportunity to remedy these problems is presented by the IDNDR, which therefore merits a brief critical examination.

THE INTERNATIONAL DECADE FOR NATURAL DISASTER REDUCTION

Dr Frank Press, the President of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, first proposed the IDNDR in 1984 at the Eighth World Congress on Earthquake Engineer- ing. Eventually, the idea was adopted by the United Nations, under Resolution 421169 of 1987.9 The United States continued to take the lead by issuing two prospectuses on American efforts connected with the Decade (U.S. National Research Council,


Natural Disasters: A Framework for Research and Teaching 213

1987, 1989). Several proponents and practitioners have published their ideas on how

tackle, all major problems of disasters around the world.

the Decade should be operationalized (Holland, 1989; Housner, 1989; Lechat, 1990; Oaks and Bender, 1990).

It seems that the principal thrust of the Decade will be to promote the international sharing of ideas and data (through con- ferences and other co-operative efforts), and the development of national and world- wide networks for monitoring the agents which produce disasters. Laudable as these aims are, the initiative has not escaped criticism, calling into question the American prediction that it will be possible to halve the impact of natural disasters by the year 2000. Mitchell (1988) has made the following points about the IDNDR in general and the U.S. Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction in particular.

(1) New research, such as that proposed under the auspices of the Decade, is not easily justified when much current knowledge and expertise remain un- utilized.

(2) Broad, societal processes are not easy to change, yet are fundamental to human vulnerability. They are not considered explicitly in the prospectus for the USDNDR.

(3) Expensive and sophisticated monitoring, experimentation and management initiatives are unlikely to work in poor countries. But non-structural approaches and the applications of alternative, low-level technology are not receiving adequate consideration under the terms of the Decade.

(4) Co-operative science has a mixed record of success in reducing the toll of natural hazards. Its efficacy should be evaluated before any large new projects are proposed.

(5) As initially specified, the Decade lacks a strong focus on a few relatively simple issues. Resources will undoubt- ably be insufficient to solve, or even

Hence, in the eyes of some practitioners, the IDNDR has assumed the status of a “technofix”, in which the proponents of technology and hard science use it as a justification for generating yet more of the same. Sociologists (Dynes, 1990), Third World development specialists and ecolo- gists (Burin, 1989) have been quick to point out the lack of reference to their own special- ities. An extreme interpretation would be that the Decade represents an attempt by engineers and physical and natural scientists to concentrate academic power and funding opportunities into their own hands in the name of applying their sciences.

Unless the character of the IDNDR changes as it evolves, it would seem that it offers only limited scope in the field of ecological education. It can, however, be used profitably as a justification for any initiative to increase public or student awareness of disasters.

TOWARDS A PEDAGOGICAL FRAMEWORK FOR NATURAL DISASTERS

Although the discipiinary structure of disaster studies is still fragmentary, the field does not lack regularities. Some of these take the form of natural or social “laws” (albeit usually of the statistical variety), such as the following.

(1) Geophysical events of high magnitude tend to occur with low frequency, while those of low magnitude tend to be numerous in time. In physical terms, the amount of work done by events of a given size is a product of their magnitude and their frequency of occurrence (the ‘magnitude-frequency principle”).

(2) People tend to overestimate the impact of disastrous or sensational hazards and to underestimate that of pervasive hazards which claim only small


214 David Alexander

simple impact [earthquake]

TABLE 1 Continua, dichotomies and polychotomies in disaster studies

composite disaster secondary disaster [earthquake & tsunami] [post-earthquake fire]

Confinua in hazards and disasfers:

structural mitigation [retrofitting of buildings]

events: anthropogenic disaster t-) natural disaster sudden impact disaster ++ creeping disaster

(restoration) (reconstruction) short-term aftermath ++ long-term aftermath

scientific organization: technocentric approach t-) ecocentric approach

natural hazards t-) environmental geology (social science) (natural science)

attitudes and approaches: symbiosis with environment - parasitism (exploitation)

risk amplification t-) risk reduction optimizer t-) satisficer mitigation .-, laissez faire

fatalism t-) activism environmental determinism t-) probabilism - possibilism

non-structural mitigation [insurance]

Dichotomies and polychotomies:

recurrence interval for most disasters [IO-’-IO* years]

time-scale of geological events [103-109 years]

numbers of victims each time they strike (Preston et al., 1983).

(3) The more chronic and well-known the threat, the more integrated it will be with the local culture, the more uniform will be the reaction to it and the less shifting will be the focus of concern (Anderson, 1967, p. 304).

(4) As physical or emotional distance from the disaster increases, so the level of psychological impact falls, unless death, destruction or loss increase pro- portionately. This is Turner’s modification of Kastenbaum’s so-called ”Law of Inverse Magnitude” (Turner, 1976).

(5) Rather than stimulate a massive out-



migration of displaced populations, most disasters give rise to a ”convergence reaction”, in which many groups and organizations come to the disaster area (Fritz, 1957).

Hence, there is ample scope for basing the teaching of disaster studies on verifiable generalizations. However, there are also considerable uncertainties. For example, the process of turning the prediction of an impending impact into a public warning, and of ensuring that appropriate action is taken (such as evacuation), is a very impre- cise one in which the warning message is as likely to be ignored or misinterpreted as it is to be heeded (Foster, 1980). In considering the role of information in inducing people to take immediate action to prevent the worst effects of disaster, Sims and Baumann (1983) were only able to conclude with the following highly tentative state- ment: ”Information may lead to behaviour change . . . under highly specific conditions . . . if properly executed [i.e., delivered to recipients] . . . with specific targets”.

Another focus for study is the presence of various highly significant continua, dichotomies and polychotomies in the field (Table 1). For instance, a basic dichotomy exists between structural and non-structural methods of hazard mitigation (Table 2). The former involve engineering methods and architectural design, while the latter com- prise most other methods, including oper- ations research, land-use planning, risk analysis and economics.

One of the most significant of the continua is that which exists between disasters that strlke abruptly (e.g., earthquakes and tornadoes), and those that have long drawn-out impact and are hence known as “creeping disasters” (e. g . , desertification and accelerated soil erosion). Tables 3 and 4 show that the geophysical agents which produce disasters can be classified, not only according to speed of onset, but also with respect to potential duration of forewarning

TABLE 2 Structural and non-structural methods of

disaster mitigation

Structural methods: Retrofitting of existing structures Reinforcement of new structures - design features - overdesign

Safety features - structural safeguards - failsafe design

Engineering phenomenology Probabilistic prediction of impact strength Nun-structural methods: (a) short-term: Emergency plans - civil

- co-ordinator(s) - police and firemen - Red Cross and charities - volunteer groups

- medical services - military forces

- routes and reception centres - for the general public - for vulnerable groups: the very

Evacuation plans

young, elderly, sick, or handicapped Prediction of impact - monitoring equipment - forecasting methods and models

- general message - specialized warning (e.g. ethnic)

(b) long-term: Building codes and construction norms Hazard microzonation

Warning processes

- selected risks - all risks

- regulations, prohibitions, moratoria - compulsory purchase

Land-use control

Probabilistic risk analysis Insurance Taxation Education and training


216 David Alexander

TABLE 3 Classification of disasters by duration of impact and length of forewarning

Desertification

Type of disaster

..

Duration of impact 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Length of forewarning (if any) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 0

Lightning I Avalanche Earthquake Landslide Tornado

Intense rainstorm Hail Tsunami Subsidence

Windstorm Frost or ice-storm Hurricane Snowstorm Environmental

Volcanic eruption Insect infestation

Flood Coastal erosion

Drought Crop blight

Expansive soil Accelerated

erosion

fire

Fog

D D

and precursors, as well as by frequency and pattern of occurrence.1°

Being a linear measure, time is essentially the "backbone" of disaster studies. For example, Figure 1 illustrates the temporal sequence of solutions to the post-disaster housing problem, with reference to a sudden-impact disaster that strikes a devel-

oped country and generates an abrupt and massive demand for shelter. Table 5 lists the time-phases into which sudden or relatively abrupt disasters are usually classified, and gives three hypothetical examples. A more simple approach would be to use only four time periods: impact and emergency, repair of essential services, replacement recon-



TABLE 4 Classification of disasters by frequency or type of occurrence

Type of disaster Frequency or type of occurrence*

Lightning

Avalanche Earthquake Landslide Tornado

Intense rainstorm Hail Tsunami Subsidence

Windstorm Frost or ice-storm Hurricane Snowstorm Environmental fire Volcanic eruption Insect infestation

Flood Coastal erosion

Drought Crop blight

Expansive soil Accelerated erosion

Desertification

Fog

Random

Seasonalldiurnal; random Log-normal Seasonal-irregular Seasonal; negative binomial

Seasonalldiurnal; Poisson Seasonalldiurnal; Poisson, gamma, negative binomial Random Sudden or progressive

Seasonallexponential Seasonalldiurnal; Markovian, binomial Seasonallirregular Seasonal; modified Poisson** Seasonal; random Irregular Seasonal; random Seasonall diurnal Seasonal; Markovian, gamma, log-normal Seasonallirregular; exponential, gamma

Seasonallirregular; binomial, gamma Seasonallirregular

Seasonal or irregular Progressive (threshold may be crossed)

Progressive (threshold may be crossed)

* Frequency distributions adapted from Hewitt (1970, pp. 333-4) ** Eggenberger and Polya modification: see Hewitt (1970)

struction, and developmental reconstruction (Kates and Pijawka, 1977, and other sources).

Geography is also relevant here, and Figure 2 gives a simple model of spatial relations in disaster. Unfortunately, few geographers have attempted to apply their skills to spatial modelling of natural catastrophe (Alexander, 1989; Montz, 1982), and hence there is a dearth of models for the longer term spatial effects of disaster.

Nevertheless, time and space both provide essential foci for teaching about the evolution of particular disaster situations.

Another framework for study is pro- vided by the distributive effects of disaster (Table 6; Burton, Kates and White, 1978). As the magnitude of individual impacts decreases, so the size of the population affected increases (Burton, Kates and White, 1978). Using this framework involves start- ing with the medical, public health and


218 David Alexander

BUSES AND AUTOMOBILES

OF HOUSING

1

PUBLIC BUILDINGS

CAUTIONARY PERMANENT pending pending pending survey repair resettlement

TENTS

SOLUTIONS

HOTELS SPONSORED MOBILE OUTMIGRATION TRAILERS

-1

PREFABRICATED

HOUSING UNITS

RECONSTRUCTION permanent

reurbanization of the site

FIGURE 1 Shelter, rehousing and reconstruction after a disaster (the example of a developed country)



MOOEL OF WALLACE (i956) -modified

5000 iW0 500 100 50 5 0 km

NON - ISOTROPIC

FIGURE 2 Simple rriodels of spatial relafzons in d i s a s t u

TABLE 5 Summary of time periods in disaster (with examples)

Time period Purely hypothetical examples

Earthquake Tornado Riverine Flood

~~~ ~

”Incubation” or return period

Immediate precursor period

Impact

Aftermath or crisis period: Isolation Search and rescue Repair of basic services

Restoration-reconstruction Developmental reconstruction

The long term:

150 years

none

100 secs

5 years

20 mins

5 mins

100 years

15 hours

36 hours

8-48 hrs* 2-7 days

4 weeks

12 years 25 years

2 hours 12 hours 3 weeks

2 years 3 years

2 hours 3 days 5 weeks

4 years 12 years

* Time lapse represents centre-periphery dichotomy


220 David Alexander

sociological side of disaster, and moving on progressively to the engineering, architectural, sociological and economic aspects.

The fundamental principle underlying these approaches is that the key to the adequate development and teaching of disaster studies lies in making them interdis- ciplinary; in particular by concentrating on the unexplored ground at the point of con- tact between scientific specializations (e.g., between geomorphology and architecture, human perception and volcanology, engineering and human behavioural patterns). This w d require a considerable accession of ingenuity and inventiveness on the part of scientists and teachers who are unaccus- tomed to break ground outside their own specializations, or to study unfamiliar subjects.

It is thus necessary to refocus natural hazards and disaster studies from the current fragmentary approach to one that is much more unified and hence much more capable of giving birth to coherent theories of wide general applicability. The key to this is to treat hazards and disasters as complete phenomena. A general examination of the nature and evolution of the event, in other words of its phenomenology or problematic, will determine which are the most pressing questions that it poses, and hence which is the combination of disciplines and methods that can be employed to solve them. This will require re-education of practitioners at both the theoretical and the applied levels, so that they have a much wider and more integrated knowledge of natural events and their human consequences.

The unified strategy outlined here will only be successful in research and pedagogy if the problem is conceptualized in terms of its constituents, independently of any disciplinary constraints. This has been attempted in Table 7, which lists some of the main geophysical and socio-economic aspects of disasters .I1 Table 8 reconceptu- alizes a selection of these in terms of the disciplines that have something to contri-

TABLE 6 Distributive effects of natural hazards

and disasters*

S mat 1 popu 1 a tion affected, concentrated effects

Death (mortality)

Injury (morbidity) - trauma

- severe (hospitalization) - slight (out-patient treatment)

- disease - starvation and malnutrition - psychological injury

Bereavement

Homelessness - permanent (reconstruction or

- temporary (repair) migration)

Unemployment

Damage and destruction of assets and possessions

Economic loss - loss of income or investment,

indebtedness, bankruptcy

Disruption of activities

Voluntary donation

Mandatory taxation

Large population affected, well-distributed effects

* After Burton, Kates and White (1978)

bute to each aspect. Political aspects of disaster also deserve

to be examined. With regard to public administration and natural catastrophe, Olson and Nilson (1982) classified politics into participatory, specialist, pluralist and elitist forms, and public policy into distributive, constituent, regulative and redistribu- tive. They noted that political culture,



TABLE 7 Aspects of disasters pertinent to their

management

Physical occurrence: Probability Frequency Transience (duration) Physical magnitude Energy expenditure Physical effects: direct, indirect and

Area affected: directly and indirectly Degree of spatial concentration or

Volume of products (e.g., lava,

secondary

ubiquity

floodwater)

Predictability: Short-term (for avoiding action) Long-term (for structural and non-

structural adjustment)

Con trollability : Can physical processes be modified? Can physical energy expenditure be

Can effects be mitigated? Can effects be modified?

reduced?

Socio-culf u ral factors: Belief systems inherent in societies Degree of knowledge of risk Complexity of social system and its

constituent groups

expressed as power relations, may inhibit decision-making by preventing a latent issue, such as a disaster mitigation strategy, from becoming a question for decision.” Furthermore, Mitchell et al. (1989) argued that political questions may provide a context which on occasion actually over- shadows the impact of natural disaster.

Although it is not difficult to map out the fundamental elements in natural disaster and relate them to each other (Tables 1-8), the exercise is not without contro-

versy. Hewitt (1983) argued that the direc- tion of causality has been mistaken by the majority of scholars in the field. In catastrophe nature is seen to decide which social conditions or responses will be significant. Hewitt has argued that vulnerability and human social organization are, instead, the critical determinants of both risk and impact. This view is reinforced by Kreps (1989) and Drabek (1989), who both redefine disasters as ”non-routine social problems” (my emphasis).

CONCLUSION: HUMAN ECOLOGY AND THE ECOCENTRIC APPROACH

Natural hazards should be considered in an integrated way in terms of their geophysical impacts, their human repercussions, and the opportunities for monitoring and mitigating them. The last of these questions poses the dilemma, which is well-known to environmentalists, of to what extent technocentric, rather than ecocentric approaches are capable of mitigating hazards. The view that technology will eventually triumph over catastrophe is still fashionable, but is increasingly subject to criticism and doubt. Economic power, the force behind technocentrism, is related to the seriousness of disaster impacts in a non-linear way that is tempered by political factors and the tendency to accumulate physical capital and thus increase vulnerability (Figure 3).

Adaptation, in varying degrees, is the key to the human ecology of natural disasters. It can take any of four forms (Alexander, 1991).

(1) Persistent occupation of the hazard zone despite the risk involved: (a) with comprehensive measures for risk mitigation and hazard abatement; (b) with only warning and evacuation measures; or (c) without any protection measures (the state of maximum vulnerability). Cohabitation with the damage caused (2)


222 David Alexander

TABLE 8 Principal disciplines involved in disaster studies

Aspects of the disasters problem Earthquakes Floods Hurricanes

Example type of disaster

Physical impact - Magnitude and

frequency geology, seismology, statistics

geology, physical ~eograPhY /

seismology

geology, seismology

physical hydrology, statistics geographical hydrology

meteorology, oceanography

meteorology, remote sensing

- Geographical location and extent

- Physical processes at work

hydraulics, physical hydrology

atmospheric physics

Effects - Risk to individuals

(mortality and morbidity)

- Damage and destruction

public health public health medicine, public health

architecture, s tructur a1 engineering economics, engineering geology, psychology, sociology, etc

architecture, structural engineering perceptual

geomorphology geography,

architecture, structural engineering economics, geomorphology

- Other effects: e.g. economic, psychological

Predictability of impacts - Prediction

techniques seismology hydrology climatology,

meteorology, oceanography, remote sensing meteorology - Scope of prediction

. and likelihood of success

Mitigation - Structural and

semi-structural

geology, seismology

statistics

architecture, structural engineering economics, planning

civil engineering

structural engineering

- Non-structural actuarial science, planning

planning, public administration



Cumulative impact of disasters

on

momy

technology and fixed capital accumulation

cause damage to increase in scope and complexity-

FIGURE 3 Level of economic development and severity of natural disaster (modified from O’Keefe, in T o r y , 1979, p . 537)

by past disasters (the state of rnaxirnurn geographical inertia).

(3) Abandoning damaged or destroyed structures, but relocating within the risk zone (the case of secondary geographical inerfia ).

(4) Migration to safer zones: (a) planned; or (b) unplanned.

As Parker and Harding (1979) have noted, by emphasizing adjustment, adaptation and perception, the study of natural disasters draws attention to the dynamic relationship between humanity and environment and can be an excellent means of enhancing environmental awareness. The field can also be broadened to embrace ecological destruction (Ball, 1979). In fact,

Bunin (1989) argued that the IDNDR should take place explicitly within the compass of efforts to maintain ecological sustainability, as the main scope for disaster mitigation in the less developed nations lies in protecting their natural resources. Disasters must, however, be presented as holistic, inter- disciplinary phenomena, as the boundaries between disciplines tend to impede under- standing and restrict the creation of theory.

Notes

This paper was read at the International Con- ference on Environmental Education, “Strategy for Lifelong Environmental Education in the USSR”, held at Kazan’ University in the Soviet Union from 28 October to 3 November 1990


224 David Alexander

under the auspices of the State Committee for Higher Education. I thank my Tatar and Russian hosts for their interest in and support for this work, especially Dr Marat Khabibullov, Inter- national Programmes Co-ordinator, and Dr Yuri Kotov, USSR People’s Deputy.

1. In this account the terms ”hazard” and “disaster” will be used synonymously. 1 will not consider the so-called ”technological” hazards and disasters (such as nuclear accidents, toxic spills and urban fires) and the effects of armed conflict.

2. However, the anthropologist William I. Torry observed (1979a, p. 377) that I’ . . . an ecological perspective is curiously absent from the hazard research literature”.

3. According to Torry (1979b), Burton, Kates and White (1978) confer three distinct meanings on the term “hazard”: the agent which produces the impact, risk of exposure to the agent, and the losses resulting from impact.

4. Given by UNESCO and the Office of the United Nations Disaster Relief Co-ordinator (see Alexander, 1990, p. 4).

5. See, for example, Chandler, Cooke and Douglas (1976).

6. For example, when a slope is destabilized by construction activities (Leighton, 1976).

7. The approach of geographers has been criti- cised by Torry (197913) and Waddell (1977) on the grounds of lack of rigour and excess of technocentrism, manifest as insufficient concern for the viability and appropriateness of technology created in industrialized nations and applied to developing countries.

8. For example, Turner (1979) pointed out that in the first two thirds of the present century there were no earthquakes of magnitude 2 8.0 in Western Europe and there was only one in the United States, but there were 16 in Asia and 23 in Latin America.

9. The text of this Resolution was reprinted in Housner (1989).

10. Mitchell (1974) offered a parallel approach by classifying disasters according to the form of causal agent: climatic and meteorological, geological and geomorphic, floral and faunal, etc. Foster (1976), on the other hand, designed a twelve-point ”magnitude” scale to classify disaster impacts, using meth-

odology which is closely related to that employed in earthquake intensity scales. Finally, social aspects of taxonomy are dealt with by Kreps (1989) and his collaborators in the same volume (e.g., Drabek, 1989).

11. An earlier and more discursive approach is to be found in Stoddard (1968).

12. Boyce (1990) has chronicled a powerful example of how he believes this is being done with regard to the flood problem in Bangladesh.

References

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David Alexander Depar tment of Geology a n d Geography University of Massachusetts Amherst , M A 01003 U.S.A.


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